


Electric Blue Blood

by orphan_account



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Sentinels & Guides, Angst, Bullshit anatomy and medical terminology, M/M, Murder Mystery, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Sentinel Keith, Sickfic, Vomiting, guide lance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-06-08 11:51:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 31,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15242781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Here's the truth.Keith Kogane is the best pilot of his generation.  His flying skills are second only to his talent with a sword and martial arts.  He's a genius, a prodigy pilot, and he's beloved by the public and by his family.  His life is perfect.Here's the lie.Keith Kogane is living off of unemployment and can barely afford his tinderbox apartment.  His meager talents don't matter when all he's got is disgrace to line his name, and he doesn't bother trying for more when he's only got a year to live.  His happy relationship dissolved when he found out that he was a sentinel and that his partner wasn't even a latent guide.  The whole city had written him off as hopeless, and left their once prodigal son to die.





	1. The Lie

**Author's Note:**

> I'm only posting this because otherwise I never will. This is unfinished, probably won't ever be touched again, but I might as well just upload what I've already got because I'm not doing well about updating or writing anything else so this is like, a consolation gift or an apology for being a terrible author. Sorry.
> 
> This entire au is heavily inspired by [Observations on Sentinels and Guides in Victorian London](https://archiveofourown.org/works/224907/chapters/340216) as well as the Flash, because I originally came up with this plotline intending to write this set in that universe instead. You'll notice some of the details match better for those characters than the Voltron ones, but the situation regarding my ex-girlfriend has made me want to avoid all contact with the stuff she used to like (see, the Flash). Sorry about that too.

Here's the truth.  
  
Keith Kogane is the best pilot of his generation.  His flying skills are second only to his talent with a sword and martial arts.  He can speak in four different languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and English).  He's as gay as they come and he's in a happy relationship with the man of his dreams.  His job as a test pilot for Boeing doesn't give him a lot of time to spare, but when it does, Keith spends his time attending college classes on his parents' dime in theoretical and quantum physics. He's a genius, a prodigy pilot, and he's beloved by the public and by his family.  His life is perfect.   
  
Here's the lie.  
  
Keith Kogane is living off of unemployment and can barely afford his tinderbox apartment.  His meager talents don't matter when all he's got is disgrace to line his name, and he doesn't bother trying for more when he's only got a year to live. Most of his free time (ha!) is spent in fugues, his hearing becoming so intense that even silence does nothing but make his tinnitus scream in his ears.  He has pissed his own bed so many times because of these fits that he now sleeps in his bathtub with a gag in his mouth so his neighbors can't keep complaining about all of his screaming. His happy relationship dissolved when he found out that he was a sentinel and that his partner wasn't even a latent guide.  The asshole fucked off and outed him to his parents, and now he took classes on nobody's dime, because he could afford nothing, and his parents didn't care for their gay son. The whole city had written him off as hopeless, and left their once prodigal son to die.  
  
Keith Kogane's life had once been the truth, and pretending, clinging, to his past as the truth and everything happening now as a lie was the only was he slept through the night sometimes.  
  
His mortality had never scared him, except now that it mattered.  Keith had nothing. He had nothing, and he would die without having done anything.  All because the world had decided to gift him with this bullshit ability, with this identity.  
  
Even on days like today, the good days, he barely pulled himself out of the tub.  His head was ringing, but he searched sightlessly for his phone anyway, hoping that some music would counteract his tinnitus to the point where he could function for the day.  
  
Keith wiggled his legs.  Yep. Stiff from sleeping in a bathtub, but functional and more importantly, dry.  No accidents over the night, then.  
  
He played some Joe Hisashi off his phone, found that it pissed him off that his favorite pieces were now far beyond him, and immediately switched over to Miley Cyrus.  Hating her music was always easier than hating music that had once moved him body and soul, and Keith allowed the invasive tune to drown out the ringing enough to climb out of the tub, rinse his face off in the sink, and pull on a clean set of clothes.  
  
Suits were long gone.  Keith now owned one pair of black jeans, ripped to shit, and two shirts.  One was free from his donating blood and selling his plasma (and didn't it sting that he'd gone long enough without having sex that he could do that fun activity?) and the other was left-over from his asshole ex, two sizes too big for him and full of holes in a way that Keith had once admired for how well-loved it made the thing look but now hated for who left it stuck under his bed.  Fuck James, honestly.  
  
He pulled on the "Central City Blood Drive; we thank you for your contribution!" shirt, the lesser of the two evils.  
  
Keith checked his mini-fridge.  Crumbs. Crumbs were all he had.  His cupboards didn't allow for any other happy discoveries.  He guessed he'd be playing table jockey somewhere today, if not just flat out going dumpster-diving.  
  
Keith stuck in his mangled headphones on the way out, and he actually did rifle through his neighbor's trash on the sly, checking for any half-finished food without too much mold on it.  
  
He was in luck.  There was half a flat bottle of Pepsi in there, and Keith nabbed it before heading out.  
  
This life was a lie, he told himself, as he let Miley Cyrus pound at his ears and the flat soda scorch his tongue with its sickeningly sugary flavor.  
  
Keith spent a moment checking his mail, flipping through long overdue bills and scam advertisement.  Nothing from his family, nothing from his ex, one postcard from Boeing wishing for his swift recovery.  Assholes. If they cared, they wouldn't have fired him so quickly.  
  
And then, an actual letter.  From the guide center, of all places.  
  
The guide center had no right to intervene with sentinels beyond matchmaking and the occasional session with one of their guides for unbonded sentinels for adjustment techniques for adapting to life with enhanced senses.  The center was one of the first institutions to declare Keith a walking corpse beyond the scope of their abilities.  
  
He had still had the vitality in him to be bitter back then about his circumstances.  He'd been fiery, full of vitriol and indignant fury. It had done nothing but get a bunch of "delicate and gentle" assholes flustered and angry with him because he'd upset their unnatural calm bullshit.  
  
Keith had forcibly mellowed out since then because he was too tired to really be angry, but he hadn't thought that the center would know that.  That they'd contacted him at all, post-outburst, surprised him.  
  
Ironically, it wasn't even the center reaching out, he realized as he skimmed the letter. Takashi Shirogane, heir to the sentinel prime of the Garrison City Tribe, CSI for the GCPD, had been looking for him and wanted to arrange a meeting.  He cheerfully stated that the guide center had contacted him on his behalf, and could Mr. Kogane please reply a.s.a.p. so that they could talk?  
  
Keith tore the letter in half.  Please reply to the heir to the Tribe?  Like he gave a fuck about the Tribe or that he was supposed to obey anyone due to rank bullshit.  All that hierarchy and all that prestige had once been part of his world so thoroughly he didn't know how to breathe without wondering about political alliances and his appearance, but all that bullshit had become such utter crap when he lost everything.  Ergo—the Tribe— meant nothing to a man who slept in his bathtub.  
  
But wait.    
  
The letter hadn't mentioned Shiro's sentinel rank at all.  It was the CSI part they mentioned, meaning somehow, this was connected to a case.  A criminal investigation, so to speak, and they could come find him with a search warrant if he didn't comply.  He couldn't be found obstructing law. He'd die so much quicker in jail.  
  
Keith now had somewhere to be today, it seemed.  
  
He made his way to the precinct slowly.  He knew moving too fast would trigger a fugue, and he couldn't even consider the subway.  Too smelly, too claustrophobic, and much too noisy to risk. Walking halfway across the city was no easy task either, but it wasn't like he could afford a cab.  
  
Keith climbed the stairs up to the building, but his legs were wobbly, and the first thing he did upon reaching the top was find the nearest trashcan and vomit.  Everything smelled too much and it was too loud, and Keith was barely keeping control of his senses.  
  
All that disgusting pop didn't taste any better coming up the other way, and he almost hyper-focused on the taste before a hand startled him out of his private reverie.  
  
A tall sentinel, male, broad across the shoulders, wearing a professional suit that complimented his bright orange mustache, a detective of some kind, had reached out to him.  The man said in a chirpy, comfortable cadence, "Are you alright? Do you need a hospital?"  
  
"If I could afford one, I wouldn't be here," Keith snapped, because there was no use pretending otherwise.    
  
"Then I'm afraid I'm going to have to escort you off the premises, sir," the sentinel said, "You're causing a bit of a scene.  Our guides are all distressed from your presence."  
  
"I got a letter.  CSI Takashi Shirogane needs to see me," Keith wiped off his mouth onto his sleeve.  "Escort me away all you like, but I was called here for a case."  
  
The detective stilled his hand.  "Shiro asked to see you?"  
  
"He reached out, yes," Keith pulled the two halves of his letter from his pocket as proof.  
  
The detective’s eyebrow inched up into his forehead at the tear in the middle of the paper, but he didn’t say anything about it.  Keith was glad he didn’t, because otherwise this would just get uglier than it already was. He might have to be here, but he was too sick to play nice.  
  
"Oh, you're here on tribe business," the man said as soon as he saw the guide logo.  
  
Damn.  Really?  He might as well fuck right back to his apartment and spend the rest of the day playing Candy Crush on his phone.  He rarely got days where he could actually enjoy those leisure activities and here he was, wasting one.  
  
"I'll call him down," the sentinel said, but there was no need.  
  
Shiro bounded down the stairs like a buff doberman, coming to an abrupt stop in front of the two of them.  
  
 "Coran, I heard someone was here to see me—," Shiro's attention immediately snapped on him, and Keith almost snarled, because for some reason Mr. Shirogane, heir to the sentinel prime, had a presence that just ultimately pissed him off.  
  
His snarl didn't register on Shiro's smiling face, even though Keith knew he'd heard it.  Oh no, Shiro kept up the smiling routine as he enthused, "Oh! It's nice to meet you, Mr...?"  
  
"Kogane," Keith responded to the unsaid question.  "Clearly you weren't actually expecting me."  
  
"There were a couple of people you could've been," Shiro said cheerfully, his eyebrow’s twitch the only sign he registered Keith's slight against him.  "It's great that you responded so quickly! You look kinda worse for wear, though. Are you feeling alright?"  
  
"Never better," Keith snapped.  "Get on with it, I don't have all day."  
  
"Uh, why don't you come up to my lab space for a while?  We should talk in private," Shiro said, holding the door to the precinct open for him.  
  
Getting out of a public space sounded fucking amazing if Keith was to be honest.  Shiro was winning his favor more and more every day, Keith snorted.  
  
He followed the man that would theoretically become the leader of the whole tribe one day up the stairs (Keith was rushed to a bathroom after more physical exertion meant more vomit) and then to a quiet room, a space cut off from sound and smell, coated in smooth white walls and only one door.  
  
Keith pulled out his headphones, because now even Miley was too grating, loud and obnoxious without other stimuli.  
  
"Do you have any clue why I sent you that letter?" Shiro asked, his tone just sympathetic enough to be obnoxious.  
  
"I am part of an investigation," Keith intoned.  When Shiro opened his mouth to explain, Keith cut him off.  It had been so long since he'd used his head to think, and the room was granting him blessed clarity.    
  
He steamrollered on, "But Detective Coran, Coran Smythe probably, if I remember our city's police department correctly?  Detective Smythe told me that this was Tribe business. You were looking for me, but you used the guide center to contact me.  I've only been there twice, and it's not the easiest way to track me down, so here's the crux of this investigation. You have been looking for several individuals included in the guide center's records—you mentioned I was one of several people you reached out to—on a Tribal Investigation outside of the precinct's direct control, and you can't use Tribal resources to do so, because otherwise I would've gotten a message from you in your position as heir directly, so this investigation must somehow also implicate our sentinel prime, Lotor Drule.  Am I right?"  
  
Shiro's face had only continued to pale the more Keith spoke.  
  
"I can see why Dr. Lotor warned me about you," Shiro said, his tone just this side of hostile.  "But you're wrong—that's not all there is to it. This whole investigation is something personal, really.  I'm not suspicious of Dr. Lotor; he just wants me to stop chasing what he thinks are loose ends."  
  
"...Oh?" Keith crossed his legs, his fingernails picking at his beaten to shit converse.  
  
"When I was little," He admitted, eyes downcast, "My mother was murdered.  She was a guide; she could feel the killing intent, or something, because one morning I woke up to her dead body in the living room, where she'd fought off a man wielding a knife and lost.  My father was found covered in her blood with the murder weapon, swearing he didn't do it."  
  
Keith remembered the story vaguely from a pamphlet about the upper echelon on their Tribe and the history of each member.  He hadn't cared then, and he only cared now because Shiro was implying the murder had something to do with Lotor, sentinel prime, even if he didn't know it.  
  
"I have spent my whole life investigating this event.  Lotor thinks I need to move on, but I won't let that go until I know the truth."  
  
"So what is my role in this?  I see no connection to your mother's murder and myself."  
  
"There's been a recent string of mysterious deaths, like some bizarre kind of overdose, all within members of the same group, I couldn't help but start to connect some dots," Shiro explained, "All the people who died had something happen to them when they were five years old.  Something that happened to both you and me."  
  
Keith couldn't help being frustrated that he couldn't figure out what that event would even be.  At five years old, he was the spoiled child of two doting parents, and well into his way of being fluent in his fourth language.  He could already play piano by then, a trade he readily would switch off for a black belt in karate in a year or two, and he was already training for a junior pilot’s license.  Unless Takashi Shirogane had a secret blueblood heritage, Keith couldn't imagine them having too much in common at that age.  
  
"Spit it out.  Even in a room like this, I could zone out at any time, and every time I do, there is a higher and higher chance of my just becoming permanently comatose," Keith hissed, "I am spending my one lucid day likely this whole week at your goddamn mercy.  Now stop fucking around."  
  
Shiro went pale again, "Wait, you can't go to the guide center and just, like, work with one of their guides to control your senses?"  
  
Keith laughed.  Oh, to be optimistic.  "I'm a lost fucking cause, Shirogane.  Now get on with it. What happened to us when we were five that has apparently killed off a whole string of sentinels—and guides too, most likely—all across Central City?"  
  
"Kidnappings.  I disappeared for a week, right after my fifth birthday.  So did you. Your disappearance was the most memorable out of all of the kidnappings; your parents turned the city upside down to find you.  There are records of your kidnapping case in folders three inches thick on the search to find you, but guess what? Once you were returned to your parents, they dropped the kidnapping case for you, saying that they didn't remember you ever being missing, and the rest of the precinct, even those who worked your case, don't recall ever trying to find you either.  It's a conspiracy."  
  
Keith shook his head, tensing up, "I was never kidnapped.  I'm lucid today, I wouldn't just not remember that—I would’ve noticed, Shirogane, I’m not stupid.  I was a genius when I was five, a certified genius, I was already starting middle school. There was no way I wouldn’t have remembered something being off if I was kidnapped for a week!"  
  
"No one remembers!" Shiro snapped, standing up in order to tower over him, to make a physical show of his dominance in the tribe.  Like Keith gave a fuck about respecting that. "It's the same thing with the rest of these files. They are all we have left of these cases because no one remembers anything!  But if my kidnapping case has something to do with my mother's murder, I have to know."  
  
"So you're bringing in the other children who were kidnapped," Keith rolled his eyes, his voice pure acid, "If no one remembers, least of all me, then how is this going to help you?  Aren’t you chasing in circles?"  
  
"Because even if this has nothing to do with my mom’s murder, it still stands that everyone who was kidnapped back then has been slowly dying of unexplained overdoses on an unidentified drug, and all the kidnapped children have eventually registered as either sentinels or guides," Shiro stared him down, taking a seat once again.  "You could hold the clue to their deaths, even if you don’t know it."  
  
Some small part of Keith wanted to connect dots, wanted to solve the mystery.  The rest of him remained unmoved. Candy Crush called to him, and Keith belatedly felt like a whole new person.  Once, curiosity would’ve driven him mad until he solved this mystery. Keith didn’t feel curious now. He felt like he should care.    
  
He didn't care.  
  
"I'm going to die anyway," Keith shrugged, putting his headphones back in.  "So good luck, and _adios_."  
  
Right as he hovered his thumb over the play button, Shiro said, "What if I told you I knew someone who could save you?"  
  
"Who?  A guide?  Takashi Shirogane, there isn't a guide in this city who's strong enough and willing enough to save me," Keith scoffed.  
  
Shiro gulped, his words chosen carefully, "What about Lance McClain?"  
  
Keith stared at him as if he'd grown a second head.  "Lotor Drule’s guide?"  
  
"Not exactly true; yes, Dr. Lotor is courting him but there's no spark between them, and I don't know why Dr. Lotor can't see it," Shiro said.  
  
"There's even less of a chance that we'll be a match," Keith spat, "Are you crazy?"  
  
Shiro paused, "If anyone in this city is powerful enough to save you, it's him.  You wouldn't even have to bond—he specializes in connecting to other minds without bonding.  You two don't need to be a match."  
  
Keith took his headphones out and exhaled.  "Fine. I'll help."  
  
"You will?"  
  
"I will.  But I am going to have to require something more from you than just Lance McClain."  
  
"And that is?"  
  
"Lunch," Keith grimaced, "You and I both know my stomach's empty with more surety than either of us would like."  



	2. New Information

Lance looked up from his workstation.  He'd had a headache all morning, his barriers weirdly weak, and the endless battering of emotions made him seek out his quiet lab in Dr. Lotor's greater laboratory, Volt-RON Labs.  Less emotions, less headache.  
  
Dr. Lotor stared over Lance's shoulder at the prototype in his hands, just a bit too close to be comfortable.  
  
Lance wasn't stupid.  He could quite literally feel his mentor's desire through his brain.  He just didn't feel the same desires in return; he built up mental block upon block to shut out the oily feeling he got from Lotor when he stepped too close like this.  
  
Bonding meant sex; that much Lance knew well.  But Lance didn't feel like Lotor' equal or his peer, not with 12 years between them, and he just couldn't move past that.  Even if they were compatible as sentinel and guide, and even if his body sometimes stirred at the sheer power he felt coming from Dr. Lotor, telling him that protection would be so much better than solitude, Lance just didn't want to bond with him.  
  
Scooting his chair back and away, Lance turned and proffered the prototype to his mentor to examine:  
  
"I don't get why it's not working!  And Hunk doesn't know either!"  
  
"The containment chamber for the gas looks to be too small; the pressure is causing your overheating problem, I suspect," Dr. Lotor returned it to him with a little flourish.  "And might I remind you, Lance, that I don't approve of you and Hunk building weapons?"  
  
"It's not a gun!" Lance retorted, cradling his and Hunk’s baby to his chest.  "It's more like an epi-pen—or, or Flonase."  
  
"Oh?" Lotor inquired.  
  
Lance explained the design, "The gas should contain traces of DNA; specifically, the gene in a guide's brain that enables empathy.  Combined with the stem cells, the theory is that an injection of this mixture into the lungs, through say, the nasal cavity, would bring a sentinel out of a fugue.  Hunk and I have been working on it together. My problem with the applicator is that it has to function like a womb, essentially, until it's actually applied. The cells have to be alive upon delivery!  But the prototype is impractical and useless unless it's portable, and those things aren't getting along right now, no matter what Hunk and I try."  
  
"Maybe you should consider that Rome wasn't built in a day," Lotor put a 'comforting' hand on his shoulder, his thumb massaging circles into Lance's sore skin.  
  
Lance had to work to keep from flinching.  "What do you mean?"  
  
"Start big.  It's not impractical; it would be something hospitals could use on their patients.  In the children's ward, perhaps, for sentinels who gain their abilities far too young and too quickly, for whom bonding won't be an option for years.  You don't have to help everyone immediately, Lance. You already help so many people."  
  
Lance smiled, finally relaxing enough to lean into Dr. Lotor' comfortable warmth.  This was one of those times where his determination faltered, where he considered... but no.  He couldn't. He didn't think of Dr. Lotor as a lover. Dr. Lotor was much more like a father, warm in that sort of way, and Lance could feel it emanating from him, this sort of pride that fathers had for their children.  This wasn't the passion of a lover—Lance knew it wasn't.   
  
He wanted to pretend it always wasn't, that Dr. Lotor always felt this sort of fatherly pride for him, but he knew lust and desire when he felt it, and Lance had been able to feel it coming from Dr. Lotor starting the second he turned 18.  
  
"I guess I can start looking at a bigger incubator, but I'll have to talk to Pidge about dosage; kids would need a vastly different dose than adults.  And adults fuguing bad enough to be hospitalized would need a much stronger dose..."  
  
"I'll leave you to focus," Lotor said, leaving him with one last squeeze of his shoulder.  
  
Lance stripped apart his prototype and when back to the drawing board.  The average size of the...  
  
Ugh.  His phone vibrated cheerfully on the desk.  Shiro was calling.  
  
"Yo," Lance answered, holding his phone with his shoulder as he dug around for parts to build a second, larger prototype.  
  
"Hey man," Shiro said, "Remember my little private investigation?"  
  
"Why are you even asking me that?  Of course I do, I'm a huge part of it," Lance rolled his eyes as he leaned back in his chair, new parts in hand.  He'd even helped with some of the data, mostly because it was becoming increasingly clear that not only had Shiro been kidnapped but that Lance had been too.  And his parents were incredibly nonchalant about it.  
  
"We hardly noticed you weren't there," his mother had said easily, "You vanished off on little excursions all the time.  What was one week here or there?"  
  
Except Lance didn't remember ever vanishing for a week.  Or any of the week's his parents claimed he just didn't come home.  And his parents couldn't tell him how he managed to vanish, seeing as he was five at the time, but they did mention his disappearances repeated themselves, all the way up until he was fourteen.  
  
Unlike the other victims, Lance had been taken more than once over a time frame stretching 9 years.  And he didn't remember any of it.  
  
"Good, because I talked to another victim today—Keith Kogane.  I suspect that whatever happened to those other sentinels and guides is happening to him.  I've never seen a sentinel in such shitty shape."  
  
Lance's eyebrows climbed his forehead, "He's in the process of overdosing?"  
  
"I think so," Shiro sounded urgent, "I made a deal with him; he'll help with the investigation if you can help him.  I was figuring you could help me keep him alive long enough for Pidge to maybe create an antidote for this drug he's overdosing with, or a cure, or something to get it out of his system.  You could just smell there was something wrong with him—in him."  
  
"Well, I couldn't smell it," he joked, "But I imagine I could feel it.  If he really is that bad though, Shiro, he might be too far gone for even Pidge and me to help him.  Only his bonded guide could."  
  
"You're unbonded, so is he!  It can't hurt to try. Leaving him without help is sentencing him to die, and I think he can help us.  He's a dick, Lance, but he's brilliant. I could just sense it."  
  
Shiro was sounding pretty enthused for someone who had earlier said this guy was in the worst shape he'd ever seen.  
  
"Don't matchmake me, Takashi Shirogane," Lance groused, "I'm unbonded out of choice.  I know who my pair is with a good amount of certainty, and I am sure as hell am not bonding with him.  I can't just reject my true pair and bond any old sentinel that walks down the street."  
  
"When I met Allura, the feeling was overwhelming.  I needed to leap into her arms because she was safe.  She was home. And she said I felt the same to her," Shiro sighed, dreamily, "Lotor might've pretended to have felt that way about you, but it's not real!"  
  
"He thinks it's plenty real," Lance handed off the gun to Hunk as the other man quietly entered the room.  Hunk looked over the schematics before he nodded in understanding and then began the process to weld two metal bits together to form the injector system.  
  
Shiro made a disgusted sound, "Lotor's lust for you is not the real spark.  You're not his home, and he's not yours. You would've felt it if he were, and you said you didn't feel it!  That he hasn't dropped it just means he's a parasite, and while he's around, no other sentinel can even look twice at you."  
  
"And your matchmaking is supposed to be somehow more benevolent?  This guy what, has a couple weeks left on his life, at max? Even if we save him from whatever drug he's on, you said yourself that he's a dick."  
  
Lance watched as Hunk poked at his newest prototype with his smallest screwdriver.  It was still a bit too big to fit into the crevice he wanted it to, but neither of them wanted to go find a smaller one in Lotor' side of the lab just yet.  
  
"It was an idea.  You don't have to even bond with him; you specialize in bondless guide-work anyways."  
  
"True," He sighed, "But I feel a bit used.  You didn't even ask me before I became your bargaining chip to this guy, and I can't even tell you if I have a good or bad feeling about him because I haven't met him."  
  
Shiro made a sad noise, guilty but really not, before perking up, "You can google him, actually!  His parents are the co-CEOs of Kogane Industries. He used to be a big shot member of Boeing and he was working on his PhD in Quantum Physics before he dropped out.  He's actually got a wide berth of online literature about him."  
  
Oh really.  Lance waved for Hunk to put down his welding torch and the bigger man flipped up his face-mask.  “Come help me Google stalk this guy.”

He felt a little bad he was distracting his friends like this.  Well, the situation called for it, and this was a little more important than their current project for fun.  He swiveled around in his chair, fished his laptop out of a pile of other important things he had to keep away from the rest of his toys.

Hunk snorted, “Are you really going to do this?  Also hi, Shiro.”

“Of course I am!  What kind of guide-researcher would I be if I didn't collect evidence?” Lance waggled his eyebrows.

And then he did just that; google Keith Kogane.

“Huh,” Hunk said, leaning over his shoulder.  Unlike with Lotor, Hunk’s warm presence calmed him down and made him happy.  The larger guide was definitely his favorite person to be around.

Lance turned his attention back to the search results.

Keith Kogane’s picture wasn't bad.  He was kind of pretty, actually, soft angles and wide nose and very pretty dark eyes, like galaxies.  Lots of moles spattered his skin, creating constellations across his cheeks and down his pale neck. His black hair was neatly combed back, just long enough to be pulled into a bun at the back of his head.  He didn't look like a dying man to Lance, but the picture he was looking at dated from two years ago.  
  
Which implied that his sickness had set in relatively quickly.

Shiro explained more over the phone, citing his own previous search.

A year and a month ago, Keith's parents had disowned him.  A year ago, Keith dropped out of his PhD program. Nine months ago, he was quietly fired from Boeing, and the guide center match-making program, upon a little clever hacking of their online records via Pidge, exposed that he'd been kicked out of there around the same time as well.  At eight months, something caused his progress to halt; he leveled out. From then on, there was a couple of YouTube videos, phone-recorded footage of him singing in public parks for penny change.  
  
"If one of us is going to get this overdose thing, we now have a time frame..." Lance started searching for more photos, "It took four months to take over his whole life.  He transforms into a completely different person in that timeframe. Kogane was never tan, but holy shit does he go like full on blue here. And he goes from looking like he gets his eight hours a night to never having seen a mattress in his life.  Four months, Shiro."  
  
"He vomited twice just walking up a set of stairs and he had 'Wrecking Ball' playing at full volume through his headphones today.  The guy looked like a walking corpse," Shiro shook his head, “I can’t believe it took him only four months to transform so thoroughly.”  
  
"But he's not.  He should be dead at the rate he was going.  After those four months, his condition actually kind of stabilizes.  He hasn't really visibly deteriorated since then, which is a miracle. Whatever happened at that four-month mark that slowed down his disease, it's been extremely effective."  
  
“Maybe he stopped taking the drug?” Shiro asked.  
  
“I don’t think any of these victims were knowingly taking the drug before they passed.  You said so yourself; it was just in them. No signs of intravenous injection, no sign of it being digested.  However it got in their system, it wasn’t something they did consciously. So how could Mr. Kogane just stop taking it?”  
  
“Maybe our theory is wrong,” Shiro worried.  
  
“We won’t know until we figure out what’s going on with Kogane.”  Lance tapped his screwdriver against his bottom lip, "We need to bring him in so Pidge can study him."  
  
"But no attraction on your part?  You don't like, feel the spark now that you've seen him?" Shiro wheedled teasingly.  


Hunk snorted, “Shiro, what?  You’re matchmaking?”

"It doesn't work like that," Lance corrected.  "In person meetings only. We have to feel our sentinel's minds, Shiro.  That's what causes the spark. A sentinel has to see, hear, smell, taste, feel, or some combination of those to recognize their guide too, not pixels on a screen."  
  
"Whatever.  I just want to know if you think he was hot or not," Shiro cajoled.  
  
"In one-third of these images, he's a walking corpse," Lance said incredulously, "It's impossible to find that hot."  
  
"Necrophiliacs can."

Hunk wheezed.  Lance was not impressed.

"Thin ice, Takashi Shirogane."  
  
Shiro laughed, "You know I'm teasing."  
  
"So are you going to bring him in?"  Lance asked. "Because I'll need to call Pidge."  
  
"He told me he'd try for tomorrow.  He can't ride in cars or on the subway, but I'm thinking we can get around that if I can use one of your sets of noise canceling headphones, the good ones, and just make him keep his eyes closed."  
  
"What about smells?" Hunk frowned, "Shiro, you should know that subways smell worse than almost anything else in this city."  
  
"I was going to shell out money for a taxi," Shiro defended, "I can't tell him to walk the whole distance of the city to Volt-RON Labs."  
  
"Taxis smell too.  Bring uh... you know what, I'll concoct something.  Come meet me tonight, okay? I'll get you everything you need,” Lance promised.

“Good luck, Shiro,” Hunk added.  “We’ll be here if you need us.”

Lance spun his chair around again, looking out over his lab.  Oh man. He had so many things to do and so little time.  
  
“You know, for someone who didn’t feel the spark, you’re already doing that thing you do,” Shiro mentioned.  
  
“What thing?” Lance frowned, “I don’t do a thing.  No things here.”  
  
“The thing!  Where you like a person and the first thing you do is to smother them in a million different things,” Hunk agreed. 

"I don’t do that thing.”  Lance was well aware that that was a lie.  He did that all the time. He couldn’t help it.  He liked helping! So sue him.  
  
“You totally do!  You did it to me when we first met,” Hunk said.

“Me as well.  You connected to me so easily, I thought, are you my guide?  And then I realized that it was just you, Lance, your warmth and your heart, they’re contagious.   You have so much to give to everyone. Whoever bonds you, they’re lucky,” Shiro added.

Lance exhaled, a grin lingering on his cheeks, “Thanks, guys.  Now I need to get going. We have a guest showing up tomorrow.”


	3. Hanging on by a Thread

Keith didn’t exactly wake up.  He saw his phone vibrating on the edge of the bathtub, but he didn’t do much more than register before his eyes caught on the mold growing on the edge of his shower curtain, and then suddenly the whole world was a disaster of lights, piercing screaming, and dizziness.  
  
He remembered scrambling for the toilet, feeling stomach acid pour over his tongue and burn the inside of his mouth, and he had no clue when he passed out, but he did.  
  
It took him about two hours to regain consciousness, and he could already tell from the dried vomit in his mouth that today was not going to be a good day.  It was going to be the shittiest day.  
  
He redialed the number of whoever had been calling earlier; it was definitely Shiro, but he couldn’t completely rule out a telemarketer.  
  
And lo and behold, it was Shiro.  
  
“Keith, are you alright?  I called you hours ago.”  
  
“I fugued,” Keith said bitterly, running the water from his sink and flushing his mouth out with it.  Even if the tap was brackish coming from the faucet, it wasn’t stomach acid, and anything tasted better after that.  He was mildly surprised to feel that he could still taste things with his swollen tongue. Super senses, huh.  
  
“Oh god, uh,” Shiro stuttered, “I can come to get you now, if you want?  Or I can send a guide, would a guide be better?”  
  
Keith switched out his t-shirt and pretended like he didn’t need a shower before facing human life again.  
  
“I don’t trust strangers,” He said, flopping down on his scratchy, dusty bed.  His legs felt way too weak to walk today, and he was proud that he’d even managed it out of the tub.  He had no idea how he was keeping it together enough to even talk to Shiro.  
  
“Alright, I’ll be by as soon as possible.  I have some headphones for you that should help you block out the sound, and some other things which could help.”  
  
“Right,” Keith rolled his eyes, hanging up his phone and shoving it onto the floor, because he had ceased to care about its continued wellbeing.  
  
He curled up onto the soft fabric, scratchy enough that his cheek tingled.  Things that were too soft made his skin feel dry and flaky. He could still somewhat smell the asshole’s cologne, but part of that might’ve been lingering on the shirt too.  Only a sentinel would even be able to detect it, Keith knew.  
  
The worst thing was the noise, though.  The rush of the city around him had become a roar, and even though it seemed fairly quiet in his room, he could hear a whining note, continuous and ringing loud in his ears.  Keith knew it was just his tinnitus, just a phantom screech, but it pierced his ears, loud and steady, enough that he had to stuff his wrist into his mouth to keep from screaming.  
  
Tears leaked from his eyes, and their slow descent down his cheeks felt like razors cutting his flesh to shreds.  The scratchiness of his cheap sheets was like sandpaper as he hyperfocused.  
  
He was fuguing again.  Keith felt his arm go limp, and his vocal cords resume their jobs.  He screamed as loud as his lungs would let him, again and again until his throat bled into his mouth.  
  
Today was not going to be a lucid day, was it?  


* * *

Lance blinked.  Shiro had left fifteen minutes ago to go pick up Keith, and he really wanted to know if Hunk’s and his headphones helped.  They’d built them so thoroughly that Shiro said they creeped the hell out of him, that they made him feel like he was deaf, so Lance had hopes that they would definitely keep this Kogane guy from fuguing on the trip back.  But instead of a smooth delivery, Shiro was calling the cortex with news, and he already knew it wouldn’t be good news.  
  
Pidge picked up the call and put it on the lab’s speakers.  “Hello, Shiro.”  
  
“Pidge, I need you to help me!  He’s hyperventilating, how do I get him to breathe?!”  
  
Lance inhaled deeply.  He knew it. There was no way that Shiro would’ve called with good news.  
  
“Is he in a fugue?” Lance asked.  
  
“Deep in one.  He didn’t even notice me break into his apartment.”  
  
“Okay.  Well, this won’t sound reassuring, but…. just let him pass out,” Lance said.  “Right, Pidge? His brain will regulate his breathing once he’s unconscious.”  
  
“Right,” She seconded, “Wait for him to black out, and then put the headphones on him.  And give him whatever Lance gave him for smell, too. He’ll wake up with sensory deprivation, but if he stays out long enough to get him back here, we can help him calm back down.”  
  
“This is terrifying,” Shiro said, his voice distant, “I can see the drug in his mouth now.  He’s bleeding around his throat and gums, but the blood has traces of that electric blue we’ve identified as the drug.  He’s not overdosing right now, but the drug is definitely in his system."  
  
“God,” Pidge inhaled, “It’s visible in his blood, and he’s alive?”  
  
“He just passed out.  I juuuuust… checked his pulse, and it's racing, but there.  He’s alive,” Shiro’s voice muffled, “Okay. I put the headphones on.  I can give him the shirt later.”  
  
Pidge stared at Lance, and mouthed, “Shirt?”  
  
Lance shrugged.  He’d read on the internet that the scent of a guide was the strongest thing that could snap a sentinel out of scent-driven fugue.  He’d kindly donated the shirt he’d worn yesterday to the cause. At the very least, his sweat was probably strong enough to drown out the complexity of scents in a Taxi.  
  
“Okay.  Taxi,” Shiro narrated, grunting, “And this guy weighs nothing.  He feels like two gallons of milk, at most.”  
  
“That’s because you're a fucking bodybuilder,” Lance snorted.  
  
“Is he not eating?” Pidge asked, ever the good doctor.  
  
“He made me buy him a salad yesterday for lunch, but we didn’t talk much about the rest of his eating habits.  I can assume by how his vomit was nothing but stomach acid, that Mr. Keith Kogane does not indeed eat.”  
  
"Should I prep an IV?" Pidge murmured aloud.  "Or food? Do we even have food? And do we have juice?  We need juice for a transfusion, and I can't rule out a transfusion."  
  
"There's my lunch, but I'm gonna assume you don't mean that," Lance said, "Because I just have a box of Twinkies."  
  
Pidge's look could've frozen him solid.  
  
Lance swirled around his swivel chair, “Okay, okay!  I’ll go grab some healthy crap from the corner store.  Like orange juice and turkey sandwiches or something. I dunno if they sell anything as bland and distasteful as you can find in hospitals, but I’ll try to keep it low calorie at least.”  
  
“Thanks, Lance.  I’ll be there soon," Shiro reassured them.  "Just sticking this guy into the taxi now!"  
  
"You're not going to get arrested for this, are you?" Pidge frowned.  
  
"Why would I get arrested?" Shiro asked.  
  
"Dude, because you're hauling around an unconscious body," Lance pointed out.  
  
"I told them he was drunk as a skunk last night and he's been sleeping it off.  Explains away his over-sensitivity. Worked like a charm."  
  
"I'm proud of you," Lance said, a little awed, "and I probably shouldn't be.  But that is a great lie. A 20 on your bluff check."  
  
"I guess?  I'm gonna hang up now.  I think the driver's glaring at me through the rearview mirror."  
  
"Probably is.  Bring us our patient in one piece, please!"  Pidge teased before ending the call. She turned to Lance and waggles her eyebrows, "Don't you wish we could use the company van for this?"  
  
Lance groaned, "Why are we hiding this from Dr. Lotor, again?"  
  
"Shiro wants it to be kept secret, and we're his people, Lance," Pidge smiled at him, "We may not be his guides like Allura is his guide, but we owe our loyalty to Shiro.  We're part of his tribe."  
  
"I just like having good reasons to lie to my sentinel and mentor," Lance rolled his eyes, standing up.  "And Shiro's aren't good reasons."  


* * *

Keith woke up to the inside of a taxi.  Takashi Shirogane was sitting anxiously next to him, hovering.  Keith could see his lips moving, but he couldn’t hear anything besides the piercing screaming in his ears.  He lifted a hand to his ears, but hit a set of chunky headphones. Ah. Noise-cancellers. Extremely effective ones, too, since he couldn’t hear any sounds besides his tinnitus.  
  
It was almost worse than just the regular roar of the road.  
  
“Music,” he croaked.  “Tinnitus—I have..."  
  
Okay, the croaking was new.  What the fuck happened to his throat?  Keith licked his teeth and tasted blood.  At this point, it was regular enough of an occurrence that he couldn't find it in himself to even give a shit that he was bleeding out his mouth.  
  
Shiro mouthed something at him, or maybe he really was speaking, but either way Keith saw nothing but his mouth moving.  
  
Keith pointed at his ears and rasped, "I... need... music."  
  
Shiro nodded, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion but he pulled out his phone anyway and handed him an earbud to sneak underneath the headphones.  Gross 00’s pop filtered through, but anything was better than his tinnitus’s painful ringing. He’d suffered through Miley, he could suffer through Katy Perry.  
  
Keith sighed once he was surrounded by sweet—well, not silence, but perhaps just not painful ringing in his ears.  
  
_"You think I'm pretty without any make-up on,"_ Katy crooned in time to her techno beat.    
  
Something smelled weird in the taxi, and now that his head felt substantially clearer, he could kind of pinpoint it coming from Shiro.  
  
Keith leaned in, sniffing, but he couldn't explain what he'd caught onto, because a large fume of burnt oil filled the whole car.  
  
_"You make me feel like I'm living a teenage dream,"_ Katy reminded him just before his senses overloaded with the smell.  
  
Keith reeled back, his hands flying up to cover his nose, his mind latching onto the smell and not letting it go.  It clung to his nose and seeped down his throat, clogging his lungs; he could even taste it in his mouth.  
  
He could just barely see Shiro saying something, but Keith couldn't hear it, even if he wasn't wearing the headphones.  He could barely hear Katy Perry over the scent, his eyes watering from how pungent it was. But his nose, hyper-focused, didn't miss other sentinel pulling out something, a dark blue fabric, and that was definitely the source of the interesting smell from before.  
  
His nostrils flared, his hair standing up straight, the scent just overpowering his every sense—but this time in a good way.  Sweat, it smelled of sweat, and like fabric softener and skin, the oils that come off of skin, and laundry soap but faded, hadn't been washed for over a week.  
  
All Keith could process was an overwhelming desire to get it away from Shiro.  That shirt was his, no matter that he'd never seen it before. No matter that it clearly belonged to someone else.  It was _his_.  
  
Keith lunged for the shirt, throwing himself on Shiro in order to wrestle it out of his hands.  But there was no need, Shiro more than willingly handed it over. Keith buried his nose in it and inhaled, letting the scent wash over his mind.  His sense of smell had never been as strong as his hearing, but it was overwhelming now. He felt his breath catch and drag with every inhale and exhale.  The sweat on the shirt wasn't musky—not from exercise. And the oils from the skin smelled healthy.   
  
Whoever wore this, their scent called to him.  
  
Keith didn't mind fuguing if he could just focus on this.  


* * *

Shiro let out a sigh when it looked like Lance's shirt worked.   
  
"He's not really any less zoned out, though," he said to himself, waving a hand in front of Keith's dilated, unfocused pupils.  He didn't even so much as attempt to track the motion.   
  
Shiro pulled out his cell and called the team again.   
  
"Shiro, hello!" Pidge answered.   
  
"Hey.  Uh, just an update.  We're like 5 minutes away.  We got stuck in traffic behind a diesel truck and it messed up our passenger, but Lance's shirt is working wonders.  Well, sort of. He won't let go of it, but he's definitely still fuguing."   
  
"I'm going to prep the med bay; I think Lance was right.  He's probably way too far gone for us to do much of anything.  I'm not a miracle worker."   
  
"Lance's the best guide the center has ever trained.  Shouldn't he be able to help with Keith's fugues long enough for you to administer medical attention?"   
  
"Theoretically, but things can definitely get messy," Pidge worried.  "Especially because we don't even know how this drug works, or even what it does.  Just that everyone who has had it in their system has turned up dead."   
  
Shiro watched as Keith's hands went limp, his head slumping as he fell unconscious.  His fugue had knocked him out yet again.   
  
"I know.  Uh, we're pulling up to the gates now.  I'll carry him in. Any update from Lance?"   
  
"He's stuck in line at the convenience store.  The closest one is closed on Sundays, apparently, so he's at the 7-11."   
  
"Tell him to hurry up."   
  
Shiro hung up.  He tried to reach out and haul Keith's stiff form to his feet, but the guy subconsciously growled at him, his upper lip pulling up over his bloody teeth in a snarl.   
  
"Damn," Shiro muttered.  He might've been the heir to the sentinel prime, the natural successor to the clan, but that didn't mean that he couldn't see what was happening here.  Keith wouldn't obey his rank even subconsciously, so Keith must share the same rank. Or at least, he once did. Before all of this drug stuff.   
  
Shiro physically grabbed him, because at this point, he could probably take the 100 lb man in a fight and he needed to get him help.  Carrying the snarling man out of the taxi and up into the building was not easy. Maybe there was no spark of consciousness in Keith's eyes but he was violent without it, the way his body trembled bordered on feral.   
  
Shiro had to hold both of Keith's thin wrists behind his back and shove him forward like a prisoner just to get him into the medical bay.   
  
Pidge gasped and pushed him down onto the bed, rushing around the space grabbing this or that.   
  
"Shiro, prep an IV, we might need one!" She demanded, a flurry of motion.   
  
It was to this that Lance returned.   


* * *

There were stories about what meeting one's soulmate would be like.  That when you first met them, your hearts aligned, that all the colors in the world seemed brighter, that you could feel their joy.  That when you touched them, you felt sparks, your skin tattooed with their endless love for you. They left a mark on you that you would wear for life.   
  
The stories of meeting one's sentinel were much the same, but had more actual consequences that came later—the bonding heat, for instance, was nothing to shake a stick at, and could even be deadly.  But that first moment was always this flowery spark of love at first sight.   
  
Lance met his soulmate and sentinel as he went into cardiac arrest, as Lance walked back from a 7-11 with a gross salad and a pitiful excuse for a jug of orange juice in hand.  He did not feel sparks or like his world gained more color.   
  
No, Lance felt none of that.   
  
It was just a bone-deep chilling sort of dreadful knowledge.  This person is my sentinel. This person.   
  
He dropped his bags on the floor and ran, because every breath might be his sentinel's last, and he was on the other fucking side of the room from him.   
  
Lance ran, only for Shiro to grab him around the middle before he reached him.   
  
"Lance!  Lance!" Shiro shook him, and Lance turned to his friend with terror in his eyes.   
  
"He's dying, Shiro," Lance cried, and he had no idea when he'd even started; he'd had no idea that he'd feel so strongly for a stranger.  "My shields, they aren't..."   
  
He could feel in his soul every last heartbeat, and the high emotions of the room battered against his shields, but his sentinel's pain didn't need to knock.  It had the key. And it was overwhelming.   
  
"Pidge," Shiro called, "We're going to step out now."   
  
She nodded, her face twisted up in pain.   
  
Lance looked at the woman he thought of like his sister, and he knew it was him, his projections, that were hurting her.  He ran for the door, scrambling away from their medical wing, and out the front doors, his legs only giving out when he reached the staircase down to the street.   
  
It wasn't far enough away that he couldn't still feel his sentinel's pain or Pidge's frustrated anguish as her patient continued to slip through her fingers.   
  
Shiro took a seat next to him, tucking him under his arm.   
  
"Shh, it's alright, shh..." he said, his cheek resting on the top Lance's head.   
  
Lance sobbed openly into his friend's shoulder.   
  
Everything hurt.  Lance burned inside and out, his mind stinging from how he couldn't breathe, how it wasn't even him that couldn't breathe but the person that he was meant to be with for the rest of his life.  He needed to be there, but he had been and would be just in the way. He couldn't save his sentinel. As soon as he got him, he was ripped away from him.   
  
"Pidge can stabilize him," Shiro whispered, "And once you feel better, you can go back in there and help her.  Rebuild your shields, Lance. You're safe, so rebuild your shields."   
  
"He's not," Lance croaked, his voice shot through with emotion.  "He's hurting so much..."   
  
"Shhh," Shiro stroked his hair, "He will live, Lance.  You trust Pidge, you know she can save him. Take a deep breath."   
  
Lance listened, his eyes drooping shut.  He focused on steadying himself, calming his hiccup-y sobs.  Every time he thought he'd figured it out though, his heart would pick up the searing pain of his sentinel, and no shield he knew of could block that out.   
  
"Shiro, call Allura?" he asked.  She was one of the strongest guides Lance knew, and she struggled from oversensitivity like he did.  Moreover, she was bonded. Shiro got himself into stupid situations all the time, she had to know how to function through that sort of pain.   
  
Shiro nodded, pulling out his phone and dialing.  He placed the ringing cell into Lance's hand.   
  
Lance accepted the phone and pressed it to his ear, the one not currently stuck against Shiro's chest.   
  
"Allura?" He asked once the call clicked online.   
  
"Lance?  You sound awful, are you alright?"  The worry in her voice was gentle, and he could feel the affection underneath it even though he was a mile away from her.   
  
"I met my sentinel," he said weakly, "and he's dying."   
  
She made a strangled noise, "What do you need from me?"   
  
"How do I... block out his pain?" Lance asked, curling even closer to the reassuring health of Shiro, his solid warmth and steady heartbeat.  "I need to go back in there. And... and help Pidge save him."   
  
"Lance, you can't block out his pain.  Shiro's pain will always be shared with me, just like how your sentinel's pain is going to be shared with you.  You just have to separate it out from yourself. It's his pain, not yours. Remember that you're in your own body, Lance.  Your own body isn't failing. Your organs aren't shutting down. You aren't in pain. Every time he hurts, you have to remember those things.  Right now, remember that you are your own being."   
  
It was true.  His own body wasn't in pain.   
  
He took a deep breath, feeling out that dying burning core in his soul, and he reminded himself that it wasn't his.  His elbows weren't in pain, his toes were fine, his ribs were solid, his breathing was quick but painless, his eyes only mildly stung from the tears, and his mouth finally pulled itself up from its grimace.   
  
"Thank you, Allura," Lance told her, breathing deep.  He still felt that dying, stuttering pain throughout all of him, but he could get himself to move now that his body didn't feel like it was dying too.   
  
Shiro took the phone back from him and said, "Allura, I will call you once we've stabilized him.  I love you."   
  
She must've said it back, because Lance could feel a warm sugar flow through Shiro's veins.  His love for her burned so hot, so pure, that Lance wanted to relish in it.   
  
He had other responsibilities, though, and he let Shiro help him up, so that they could walk back into the medical bay.   
  


* * *

Pidge had hooked her patient up to an IV and an oxygen machine to keep him breathing, but it was becoming clear what was happening.   
  
Her patient's senses were so enhanced by his fugue that they had become cellular.   
  
It was fascinating medically; to think that someone's senses could become enhanced right down to their white blood cells being better able to detect foreign substances.  Her patient's fugue was so strong that his senses had detected a foreign substance in his body. Where before, the drug lay dormant, now his brain had detected it. Unfortunately, this enhanced internal sense had become like an autoimmune disease.  He was sensing intruders to his body everywhere, even where there weren't any; not only the drug, but his own tissues and cells.   
  
She needed Lance to come back in here and somehow get him to come down out of his fugue so she could buy them time to figure out how to remove the drug.   
  
The sample she'd pulled for analysis couldn't help her until she knew her patient was stable, and right now, his body was destroying itself right in front of her.  No cocktail of drugs would help him heal at this point.   
  
She didn't have to wait long though.  Shiro escorted an exhausted, trembling Lance back into the medical bay.  His emotions were sort of under control, Pidge could tell, but her shields were as strong as she could make them and she actively banished any stray projection he let slip.   
  
"Pidge," Lance asked quietly, "What can I do?"   
  
"Bring him out of his fugue, immediately," she instructed.  "Get his senses as null as you can guide them to be. I want him not to be able to sense anything for as long as possible."   
  
Lance nodded, and he hurried to his sentinel's side.   
  
Keith Kogane instantly reacted to his touch, his body relaxing into blessed stillness.  Pidge could see his fugue shifting targets, his black eyes snapping into a lock on Lance's puffy, tear-streaked face.   
  
Lance murmured to him, his thumbs stroking patterns into her patient's skin.   
  
Pidge could feel as he radiated calm, his stress translating well into a heavy blanket of stillness.  Shiro subconsciously slouched in the corner, and Pidge worked to keep herself from yawning.   
  
"Close your eyes," she heard Lance tell Keith, and it wasn't the voice he usually used when working with patients.  Yes, it sounded similar, but it was much softer and more delicate. It was not a coaxing effort; it was an ironclad command.   
  
Keith responded well to him, Pidge thought to herself, but no better than the rest of them were.  Maybe it was how deep his fugue had been, but he was remarkably less affected by Lance than Shiro would be to Allura.   
  
Maybe it had to do with their bond; Keith and Lance hadn't completed theirs.  But it seemed odd to Pidge.   
  
"He's asleep," Lance said softly, "I did the best I could.  You were right, Shiro, he's... ha, he's an ass."   
  
Pidge blinked, covering her instinctive smile with a hand.   
  
Shiro laughed out loud with relief, "Spot on deduction!"   
  
Lance frowned, "Pidge, his senses were ridiculous.  His brain's subconscious monitoring of his own body—he enhanced that sense.  How is that even possible?"   
  
"I have no clue, but I can hazard a guess what this drug does to sentinels now.  It's an enhancer, an accelerant to their powers," Pidge grabbed the syringe off the table and showed Shiro and Lance the bright electric blue shot through Keith's blood.   
  
"Like a steroid for athletes?" Shiro asked.   
  
Lance stared at it in horror.  "Who would shoot up with something like that?  Especially an unbonded sentinel? They would fugue immediately."   
  
"Here's another curious thing!" Pidge put down the needle and pulled up the sleeves of Keith's hoodie to show off his arms, bare and thin and completely free of marks, minus the one band-aid Pidge had stuck over where she'd pulled her sample.   
  
Lance grabbed his sentinel's hand, squeezing it.  His knuckles were white. Pidge didn't envy his pain.   
  
"There's no injection scars.  And there's no way he ingested this drug.  There's way too much in his bloodstream for that.  And the drug isn't being metabolized by his body. It's just floating around in his bloodstream as if it's not even there.  It should dissolve, or something. Theoretically, if it doesn't do that, then it could have been in him for years. For almost two decades, even."   
  
Lance froze.   
  
Shiro said what Pidge hadn't, "You think it was injected to all of the kidnapping victims when they were five?!  And just stayed in them for that long?"   
  
"Pidge, sample my blood," Lance begged, "I was kidnapped the most often.  If you're right, then I should be a walking, talking, drug container."   
  
She prepped a syringe, trying to keep calm herself with emotions still running high.  It was easy to block out other people's emotions but her own tension was much harder to ignore.   
  
Pidge carefully sterilized his skin at the elbow, and she slid the needle in as gently as she could manage, painlessly.  She withdrew a fair amount, and it was clear immediately that there was no blue tinge to it.   
  
That wasn't to say that it wasn't clearly full of something.  Oh no, it had a weird shimmer to it. The blood looked a lot more like it was shot through with candy apple red.   
  
"A different drug for guides," Lance immediately said, "Shiro, you..."   
  
Pidge stored all of her new samples, and she vibrated with the knowledge, "We'd always assumed it was some sort of voluntary or involuntary injection given to these patients by the kidnapper, to make their deaths self-inflicted, or to look like they were.  But the kidnapper... he never came back for these people. Their bodies just finally recognized the foreign substance in their veins and began rejecting it, like a body rejects an organ transplant without immunosuppressants..."   
  
"If we want Keith to keep that shit in him, then we'll need to use those on him," Shiro frowned, "Can we do a blood transfusion to flush it out of him?"   
  
"We don't even know what it's doing to him yet.  His body is rejecting the drug, yes, but the drug might be integral to his functioning now after over 15 plus years of being in him," Pidge glanced over, worried, "No one knows what this stuff does yet.  I have no clue how it'll interact with anything I'm giving him. It's like trying to shoot an arrow through an apple on his head while blindfolded. I'm a lot more likely to hurt him than help."   
  
"Wait..." Lance mumbled, "Keith's condition slowed way down after four months.  Why?"   
  
Pidge shook her head, "I couldn't say yet.  This is the first victim we've found before they died.  Whatever Mr. Kogane did then, I'd love to know what it was."   
  
Lance numbly laid his head down on the pillow next to his sentinel's, "He needs to sleep, Pidge."   
  
She nodded, "I understand.  Shiro, I'd like a sample of your blood too.  I want to get started on testing and comparing these drug samples as soon as possible."   
  
Shiro squeezed Lance's shoulder, and the two of them left the couple in peace.   



	4. First Meeting

Keith woke to a feeling he was sure was akin to being crushed under the weight of seven monster-trucks.  And all he could think about was how he was weirdly missing that t-shirt.  
  
He could still smell traces of it, or at least whoever wore it.  His head was resting on their pillow, because he could smell hints of their shampoo and their distinct oils and sweat.  They still smelled intoxicatingly good, but he felt a lot more concerned about the searing pain in every inch of his body than he did that particular fact.   
  
He blinked, his eyes scanning the room futilely for anything that wasn't the white ceiling.  He caught on to an IV in his arm, but there was no label on it to give him a clue what he was being pumped full of.   
  
He rolled over, but it became abruptly clear that he was in a relatively quiet room.  His tinnitus rose up like a whining child, quiet before it erupted into loud ringing pain.   
  
He couldn't move, everything hurt too much, but he needed noise.  He needed to hear something to counteract this.   
  
He sunk into the pain, his eyes losing focus as he couldn't stop searching for a sound, any sound, to make his head stop hurting.   
  
Someone burst into the room, a vibrant rush of sound and color.   
  
Their hands descended onto his skin and their words slowly filtered through.   
  
"Easy.  Easy, Keith.  Shh." Each word was punctuated by a touch; a hand on his forehead that moved to also check his cheek for fever, an entangling of their fingers when no fever was found, a stroke of his thumb over the back of Keith's hand to bring him back into his own skin.   
  
Keith gasped, nerves sparking as he sunk back into himself, his body heavy with pain.   
  
The guide, because it definitely was a guide, sang softly in Spanish under his breath, his thumb stroking a rhythm for Keith to focus on.  He provided non-intrusive stimuli, a quiet murmur, rather than complete silence, but that made horrible sense, considering Keith had tinnitus.   
  
Keith finally felt like he could breathe.  He let the sensation of the guide's attentive care wash over him like the warmth of a candle flame.  His mind quieted, the hush and pull of the guide's voice an ocean or a rolling thundercloud. Keith wanted to be pulled under by the sensation of finally being at peace, his guide's hand in his own.   
  
Except that wasn't true.  This guide was one that specializes in forming deep connections without bonding.  This guide was Lance McClain, because there was no other choice for who it would be.  It was a logical jump. The chances that the guide that Shiro had offered to work with him being the same one by his bedside?  Yes, pretty much expected actually. And this guide felt so strong in his mind, so powerful, that Keith couldn't imagine it being anyone else.  He could sense how the guide assessed him, and it felt like Lance McClain could somehow read his every thought. Lance McClain was the strongest guide in the city, and Dr. Lotor, sentinel prime, had made everyone well aware that they were not to touch.   
  
No matter what his heart said or what his head wanted, this guide wasn't Keith's.   
  
Giving him peace like this, considering how temporary it would end up being, felt far crueler than just leaving him broken and bleeding as before.  It was easy to want to be comforted by all of this. It was a lot harder to accept that he wouldn't be able to keep it.   
  
If he let himself have this, he'd never stop wanting it, and Keith hated the thought of being nothing but an empty miserable shell waiting for death.  At least even now as he was dying, he still had himself. This? This threatened all of that.   
  
Keith yanked his hand away, trying to struggle into an upright position.  When his tired eyes finally focused, he could trace the lines of annoyance on the guide's face.  As open and pretty as it likely usually was, Keith had already determined to hate it.   
  
His eyebrows were neatly maintained, he had narrow eyes with tiny pupils but they were still so blue, and his hair was short and tangled.  It was so difficult to focus on those things and to make them negative in his own mind, not when a guide's natural disposition was meant to draw in the affection and respect of sentinels.  Keith was fighting a one-way battle and he was going to lose.   
  
Even if he was stuck in this, destined to be reduced to a begging mess just crying for his sanity back, an addict who would do anything to just get the guide's hands back on his skin, Keith was determined to never open his mouth.  To never ask for just one more gentle touch, one soft moment of painlessness. Asking for help from a guide was a mistake, but Keith was not going to let himself become an addict.   
  
"You're in pretty bad shape," the guide said slowly, his voice sharp with frustration, "so you shouldn't be moving around."   
  
Keith relaxed his head against the bed frame and glared at the guide with all the ire he could muster up.  It was a lot of ire. "You shouldn't give out orders, Lance McClain, especially not in a ‘The Hunter Becomes the Hunted' t-shirt."   
  
"You know my name?" Lance's cheeks were turning a weird blotchy red.  He didn't avert his eyes though, those staring him down, sharp and determined.   
  
"It's only fair, since you know mine."   
  
"How?"   
  
"I'm not stupid.  Unlike some people, I have more than two brain cells to rub together," Keith grimaced, aching from sitting up and from the loss of Lance's warm comfort.  "Not that I had to use more than two to figure out that obvious fact."   
  
His senses were grating on him again, and with Lance so close, it was extremely difficult to keep from just saying, 'Help me, everything hurts.  You feel like water and I burning alive, please, just give me yourself.'   
  
Instead of allowing the guide in to do just that, Keith took all of that psychic connection and rejected it, threw it back as hard as he could.   
  
Lance reeled back, a distrustful sneer lingering on his cheeks, "I knew you were an ass, but man, I had no clue you were this big of a dick.  I'm gonna pretend for my own sanity that like 80% of your douchiness is the incredible amount of pain you're in."   
  
Keith cracked a smirk, his dry mouth stretching painfully as he replied, "I'm this charming all the time, Mr. McClain.  Now tell me, are you the one running tests on me, or is it the Dorito-obsessed woman whose laundry detergent I can smell down the hall?"   
  
"It's Pidge that'll be trying to save your life, which, it would be totally awesome if you were grateful for that," Lance hinted.  "Like, don't be a dick."   
  
Keith reached out and snatched the guide's wrist, pulling him close enough to growl, "Don't pretend like this is for me—I'm your guinea pig.  Let's not embarrass us both further by pretending any of you actually care."   
  
"...I do care," Lance admitted nervously.   
  
Oh god, he wanted it to be true so bad.     
  
He knew it wasn't.   
  
Keith arched an eyebrow, finally, finally secure in his own skin again, finally grounded in his own misery and pain and as far away from the comfort Lance offered, as he drawled, "For a city-renowned guide...?  ...You're terrible at faking feelings."   
  
For Lance, that was clearly the last straw, and he shoved himself away, dark eyes burning with fury.  He didn't look even a bit ashamed, unlike Keith had been going for, but at least the anger meant that the guide was going to leave him alone.  He'd been wrong earlier when he'd thought a guide could help him. It was like an addict in rehab saying that the only cure for their addiction was more drugs, more crack, more meth.  Keith despised his own weakness even more than he hated how he was essentially destroying himself even subconsciously, his body tearing itself apart.   
  
Keith closed his eyes, aching.  

* * *

Lance almost threw Hunk’s Turing wrench across the room in frustration.  He had never felt angrier in his life, and he knew without a doubt that his emotions would be flinging themselves at everyone even vaguely nearby.  
  
His fucking sentinel.  Lance knew from working with him even a little that he was a mess inside.  He was so angry, the bitterness of his mind ate away at Lance's control. Bite by bite, that acerbic stalwartness, the sheer determination to be furious, it destroyed him every time he got close.  Gentle touches were like oil to the fire, psychic connection like trying to shove a square peg into a round hole. For being the person he was destined for, and Lance knew that without a doubt, Keith Kogane was the most infuriating sentinel he'd ever encountered.   
  
If that was what his other half was like, Lance knew why God had split them in two.  They shouldn't be together; it was far less painful to be apart.   
  
Lance let out a scream of rage that quickly turned into a hopeless sob.   
  
This was not like anything he'd ever wanted.   
  
Dr. Lotor felt like such a better option now.  For all his drawbacks, the older sentinel at least could ease his mental pain and his warmth didn't scorch Lance's insides.   
  
If that burning hell of a mind was where he was meant to build a home, maybe he should bond with Lotor instead, where he got affection instead of blisters...   
  
_No._   
  
Even considering it sent jolts of wrongness down Lance's spine.  He let the first moment when he felt Keith's heartbeat, scared and fast before it just stopped altogether, fill him.  He remembered how he had felt the agony that seared Keith's mind into a hellscape. He had felt every drop of Keith's life slip out of all of their hands.   
  
Keith, his skin and flesh, his hellish mind and his pain, they were now such a part of Lance that he didn't even know if he could handle bonding anyone else.  If they weren't sharp, if their minds weren't brilliant and quicker than lightning, if they didn't possess the same fragility and fire, then they wouldn't fit into the space that Lance had been hollowing out for his sentinel.  He'd never known exactly what they would be like, and for a while there he suspected it was a Dr. Lotor-shaped space, but no. It was definitely molded to be where Keith fit.   
  
Except Keith didn't fit.  Their connection was all wrong somehow, and that must have been why Keith couldn't feel Lance back.  Why Keith's mind resisted any psychic connection like oil and water trying to mix. And maybe some of it really was his distrusting and hateful personality, but Lance was a master with emotions and psychic connections.  He could work with anyone, bonded or not, and he knew it. The fact that his sentinel was as slippery as a bar of soap in the shower was not normal at all. Lance intended to put his hands on his sentinel and never let him go again, and it just wasn't working.   
  
Lance actually picked up the Turing wrench this time and threw it across the room, a choked off sob leaking out of his throat.   
  
Pidge knocked gently, even though he hadn't bothered to shut the door.  "I have news, if you want it?"   
  
Lance breathed out through his teeth.  "Okay. I'm still pissed and frustrated, but I could use something to do other than obsess over it.  Hit me."   
  
"Physically?" Pidge worried.   
  
"No, sorry, I meant, tell me the news," Lance said, before reconsidering, "But maybe I should go to the gym after this and hit something.  I think I need it. He's such a dick, Pidge."   
  
She snorted, "But he's a dick with an extremely interesting drug in his system that I finally was able to analyze."   
  
"Go Pidge!" Lance cheered.   
  
"Yes.  The blue drug, the one that's been killing sentinels, it's not exactly even an enhancer.  I thought it strengthened his senses, but that's not what it does. It's an activator."   
  
Lance paused, "An activator?"   
  
"The enhanced senses of a sentinel aren't exactly physical—like a guide, it's a genetic trait that is either dominant or recessive.  For most sentinels, it's a dominant gene. When it comes to those sentinels who have the recessive strain, they were only able to come online due to some combination of a traumatic event and a psychic connection to a guide.  Only a rare few with the recessive gene 'come online' at all."   
  
"Okay, basic sentinel genetics lesson.  So let me guess," Lance exhaled, "It's an activator of the recessive gene?"   
  
Pidge nodded.  "So whoever kidnapped you as kids wanted to make you all come online as sentinels or guides... But it didn't work on Keith right away, obviously.  The drug took over 15 years to bring him online as a sentinel... and when it did, well..."   
  
"Well?"  Lance frowned.   
  
"Well, a sentinel's power has to do with how strong the trait is in their family.  The Koganes have never had any notable sentinels or guides, so they're not famous like say, Lotor’s family is, for being notoriously powerful.  But the Kogane sentinel gene is the strongest recessive sentinel gene strain I've ever analyzed." Pidge tapped her fingers on his desk, solemn, "It's literally so strong that his own abilities, once they were brought online, began to kill him.  His system is just destroying itself. I can't even say if removing the drug will save him."   
  
Lance shuddered, and at the sinking horror in his bones, Pidge came and put her arm around him, tender.   
  
"He's such a jerk," Lance repeated, "He's a jerk.  He's a... he's such a... Pidge, I... I don't know how you do it.  How do you live without him?"   
  
"Deep breaths," She said, petting his hair, her fingers pleasantly cool against his scalp.   
  
"I could lose him," Lance whimpered, "And he's already right here.  That's why he makes me so mad. He's right here and he won't ever go away and no one else will ever fit."   
  
"Even if it feels that way, you know it's not true," Pidge reminded him, "Matt always felt like half of me.  And he never was."   
  
Pidge's phone buzzed.   
  
She paused, but Lance nodded, made sure she knew it was okay. He was... he hurt, and his emotions were going everywhere, and he was still angry and miserable and everything awful between, but he wasn't that fucking fragile.  She could answer her phone and leave him for a second without there being an issue.   
  
She put it on speaker anyway.   
  
"Pidge!"  Shiro grunted.  "What the fuck is going on with Lance?!"   
  
Pidge's face soured, "I was about to say, you're on speaker with us both."   
  
"Fuck!  Lance, your sentinel's gone full-on—FUCKING OW!!"  There were sounds of a physical struggle, and if Shiro's own dominance and rank couldn't hold Keith down while feral, they definitely had a problem on their hands.   
  
And beyond that, a sentinel who would barely walk and was on an IV going feral could only spell out bad things.   
  
"I was projecting..." Lance realized, numb, "I was angry and I was projecting and sentinels are just as susceptible to my projections as a guide would be."   
  
"Your anger drove him feral?"  Pidge worried her bottom lip.   
  
Shiro shouted, "I don't give a fuck why, I just know he won't calm down until one of you gets over here and fixes it!"   
  
Lance and Pidge exchanged a look.   
  
"You're less likely to get through to him," Lance knew.  "But I'd just escalate the situation."   
  
Pidge shook her head, "If he won't listen to Shiro, he won't listen to me.  You have to go, Lance."   
  
Lance wiped his eyes dry, and stormed down the hallway, making his way back to the med bay.   
  
A large portion of the building later, and Lance found the door to the medical wing, and he could hear Shiro shouting behind it.   
  
When he entered, Keith had his legs and arms strapped down to the bed, and still his teeth were dug millimeters down into Shiro's forearm, blood dripping down his pearly whites.   
  
Lance gulped.  He didn't have a shred of calm in him, but he recognized Keith's snarling anger as his own.   
  
"Control your sentinel!" Shiro roared, as Keith snapped the restraints and surged up for his throat.  He was such a tiny thing of anger, frail fury and claws, vicious with blood in his mouth.   
  
Lance grabbed Keith by the shoulder, shoving him back down.  He reached out and caught Keith's whole conscious—not too hard, considering nothing was awake but his burning rage—and he surrounded it with shields, shutting out the whole world until it was just them two.   
  
_"Lindo,"_ Lance whispered, trying to keep all of their combined anger out of his shields.   
  
Keith's mind was screaming, but without rage and held in Lance's quiet space, there was nothing to fuel his anger or agony.  It faded to a quiet hush of annoyance, soothed by the presence of his guide and by the absence of his anger. Lance carefully released his shields, one by one returning them both to their bodies in full.   
  
Now that they were both quiet, calm, Lance sat down with him, and said the very thing he had wanted to hear from Keith when he'd been angry earlier.     
  
Lance said, "I'm sorry.  This isn't either of our faults, we don't get to choose.  You probably had expectations of me that I couldn't fulfill either."   
  
Keith's eyes snapped on him, and they looked almost slitted, like a predator's.  He felt dangerous. Slowly, he released his teeth from Shiro's arms, looking disgusted with himself as he spat out a mouthful of blood.     
  
Shiro took the moment to get out of the room, and his absent presence caused the both of them to relax a fraction.   
  
"What the fuck did you do to me?" He rasped.   
  
Lance laughed bitterly, "You're so full of shit.  You know exactly what happened to you, don't you, Kogane?"   
  
Keith snapped, "Yes, I went feral!  I figured out that much! But why?"   
  
"Because I got angry and you can feel me, stronger than any other guide.  I was angry and distressed and it overloaded your mind," Lance told him. "You know, you can't fool me.  You went feral because you need me."   
  
"I'm broken," Keith rasped, his blue eyes clouded with pain, "I can't even tell."   
  
Lance leaned down, cupping his cheek.  "You're a liar, Keith Kogane. Every time my hair brushes against my neck, I can see your nostrils flare."   
  
Keith turned his head away, coughing, "I'd react like that to any guide.  Don't make this more than it is, Lance."   
  
Lance leaned forward more, so that they were breathing each other's air.  Keith didn't move away this time, his pupils tracking Lance's mouth with the kind of hyperfocus that implied that he'd sunk into a fugue.   
  
Lance stroked his sentinel's cheek, enjoying the stunned awed love that graced Keith's lips and in the slight widening of his eyes.  There was no way that they both didn't know.   
  
Keith knew.   
  
He kept denying it.  Why? Maybe because, Lance was startled to realize, because he thought he had no future to give Lance.  He thought he would die.   
  
There was no way in hell Lance would ever let his sentinel die now.   
  
He sealed their mouths together, and the feeling of finally connecting, of finally becoming a pair, settled into Lance, as deep and as central to him as his blood and bone.  He sighed against Keith's lips, their foreheads pressed together.   
  
"What the fuck," Keith mumbled, coming out of his fugue.   
  
"Shut up, ass," Lance said, before silencing him with another kiss.  He could taste the blood in Keith's mouth. He didn't really care nearly as much as he should.  "I'm going to protect you."   
  
"It should be the other way around, idiot," Keith said, in between kisses.  He'd slowly begun returning them, his mouth warm and pliant.   
  
"We're always going to be backwards.  Even if we get all that shit out of your system, you're delicate, Keith," Lance pressed their foreheads together.  He could see how Keith gulped in lungfuls of his scent, panting against his neck, on the weird edge of desperate and sated.  Lance cuddled his jerk closer, hand curling in his hair, "You're delicate but you're also devastating. I can feel your powers like a knife's edge against my mind.  You're intoxicating."   
  
Keith bit into the skin of his neck, tasting him, licking at the bruising skin.  "I'm not fucking delicate."   
  
"But you are."   
  
Lance knew his sentinel was bird-boned and feather light even if he had been healthy.  And he wasn't healthy right now, so he felt like he was a sandcastle, and even the gentlest wave could wreck him.   
  
Lance drew back just so he could enjoy how blissful his sentinel looked, before he tangled their fingers together, determined to keep steady contact for as long as he needed to keep Keith from fuguing again.   
  
"How's it going?" Shiro called from the doorway.   
  
"He's calm," Lance breathed, his skin prickling warm on his throat.  Oh. Well, it was to be expected that he'd feel the bonding heat sooner or later.  He'd found his sentinel. He probably has a little over 72 hours before it fully set in, but the tingling he felt was no good sign.   
  
Shiro nodded, ushering in Pidge but remaining outside himself.  It wasn't a bad idea. As a foreign sentinel, if Keith went feral again, he'd be the first one that Keith would gun for.   
  
"I'm going to recommend we start on the blood transfusions now.  Lance will have 72 hours until he starts having the bonding heat take over his mind, and we are going to want Keith feeling better by then.”

“Bonding heat…?” Keith murmured, his eyes unfocused as he breathed shallowly.  Lance's calming touch seemed to be lulling him to sleep.

Lance nodded, “Get the drug out of his system.  If it starts to deactivate his senses, our problems are solved.  If not…”

Keith’s hand fell limp in Lance’s.  A soft snore, breathy and barely audible, escaped his nose, his mouth slack against Lance’s shoulder.  He was so much cuter when he was calm like this; Keith looked downright cherubic.

Pidge had already begun prep on the transfusion bags.  “Shiro, we’re going to need type O blood. As much as you can get.  None of us can be donors; we’re likely all equally drugged.”

“Right,” Shiro agreed.  “Be right back.”

Lance rubbed his thumb over the pale yellow skin on the back of Keith’s hand and did his best to keep calm.  “Pidge, do you really think he’ll be any better by then?”

“It's not likely,” she frowned.  “We’re not going to give up though.”

“Thank you,” he said, doing his best to memorize Keith’s face.  If he didn’t survive this, then these moments might be their first and last ones together.  Every eyelash and every mole that dotted Keith’s face were to be treasured. No matter how callous, this was Lance’s other half.  This was his sentinel.


	5. Sealing Our Fate

Keith woke to the sound of machines.  Their background hum took the place of music, and it comforted him in some way, the closest he could get to silence.  A cricket chirped outside; it must've been dark.

He watched as his blood cycled through a system of pumps and filters, before returning to his own system, like a weird external artery system.  Blue liquid dripped out into a bag, separated from his blood.

“Don't move,” Shiro said firmly.

Keith jolted.  He hadn't realized he wasn't alone.

“We have you on medicine right now to dull your senses to keep you from fuguing while Lance catches up on his rest.  But the filtration and transfusion process for you is still going to take another 13 hours.”

He nodded, slumping back down, “Fuck.  How much of that was a dream?”

He remembered kissing Lance McClain.  He remembered Lance holding his hand, like they were going to become a bonded pair.  There's no way he remembered that correctly.

“I don't know what you remember,” Shiro said unhelpfully.  “Yesterday I picked you up and we brought you here to help with the case, but you were in really bad shape.  I'm surprised we managed to save your life at all, but I'm glad we did. I don't think you can really help us too much more with this case, though.  The drug can tell me more about my kidnapping than you. Once we finish getting it all out of you, that is.”

Keith stared at the blue, then back to Shiro.  “So after this is finished, I can go home?”

Shiro looked very briefly conflicted, “What do you mean?”

“I've spent way more time here than just a brief visit to your lab,” Keith snapped, “So once you finish your completely illegal medical procedure on me, can I go home?”

“...Yeah.  Pidge might want to keep you here for monitoring—but legally, you can go at any time and we have no authority to keep you here.”

Keith nodded.  “Then I'm going back to sleep.”

* * *

Lance rushed back to work the next morning.  His sentinel was there, potentially awake, potentially feeling a lot better.  His sentinel. It felt good to think those words.

He made his way into the makeshift infirmary and looked around, just to see an empty bed and Pidge at her desk, swirling around a tube of the blue drug.

“Where's Keith?” Lance asked, heat prickling at the back of his neck.

“He finished the filtration cycle so I unplugged him and sent him out of my workspace.  I think he might be with Shiro?”

Lance turned on his heel and marched out, looking for the alpha sentinel.

He found Shiro, but he was also alone.

“Where's Keith?” Lance growled.

“He demanded we let him leave once he told us all he knew.  Which honestly wasn't much at all, so I told him he could go home if he wanted.  He doesn't have any more information for us, Lance, he knows less than we do about the kidnappings.  And he should probably catch up on some rest before you two have your bonding affair,” Shiro laughed.

“He was on death’s row yesterday!  And you just let him leave?!” Lance grabbed Shiro by his shirt collar.  “We don't even know if he’s even seen any improvement in his condition!”

“We can't legally keep him here!” Shiro tried to explain.  “If he wants to go home, we have to let him! And he seemed fine to me!”

“We needed to keep him here under observation!  Shiro, that's my sentinel you just let walk out the door, and I don't even know his damn phone number!”

“...you're really upset,” Shiro said softly, “But this isn't the end of the world.  You need to take a deep breath and calm down.”

“Fuck that!  Shiro, if Allura had walked out on you and made no promises to ever come back right after she almost died, you’d lose your mind!”  Lance wiped at his eyes with his sleeve. “I need him, Shiro, I feel like I'm going to overheat and I have less than 24 hours to find him and convince him to—to what, have sex with me?  He can barely walk!”

Shiro looked a bit like a kicked puppy but Lance was having none of it.

“You don't get to do that to me!  You just let him leave! He needed to stay but you just didn't care because it wasn't about you or the damn case!” Lance whipped around, stomping out and calling after himself, “You better hope to God that I find Keith before the bonding heat truly does set in, because otherwise I'm going to fucking haunt you for the rest of my goddamn life!”

* * *

Keith did feel a bit better now that he’d seen a guide and had some kind of bullshit drug worked out of his system.  Although ‘better’ was relative. He barely made it home via taxi and that was only because Shiro gave him the cash for a ride home.

Keith very determinedly didn't think about Lance McClain.  Even though his tired brain could kind of feel him, still. He could sense the guide in a way he'd never sensed any other guides before.  He could feel his distant heartbeat through the wind and taste him through the humidity in the air. He could smell what lingered of his scent on Keith’s clothes and skin.

Keith sunk into his bed, and wondered slightly— at what point did he have to admit that he had become addicted to Lance?  Was it now, when he couldn't stop thinking about him? Or could he still pretend the last few weeks of his life that he had left that he wasn't irrevocably dependent on another?

In his quiet moment of introspection, his eyes caught on a brown hair on his jacket sleeve, and his focus was gone.

The hair was all he could see or think of.  Lance’s. Brown, smooth. It didn't flake or have any damage to it.  Extremely well taken care of, cut with blunt scissors on one end but weathered—it had been a while since Lance had his last haircut.

The hair had fallen out naturally—a bit of Lance’s skin was still attached to the one end.  It smelled faintly of Moroccan spices, and Keith could almost picture the exact shampoo and conditioning set that Lance used.

Keith felt a deep longing so powerful that this tiny hair was enough that he was gone.  He was fuguing again, but it was so calm and painless that he sunk into it, lulled into sweet sweet hyperfocus on this one tiny precious thing.

* * *

Lance groaned in frustration.  The guide center was being extremely unhelpful.

“Keith Kogane?  Yeah, he doesn't come here anymore,” Nyma said as she cleaned out from underneath her nails.

“I need his address!” Lance begged.  “Under matchmaking law, when it comes to the safety of guides near their bonding heat, you have to provide them with any information you have regarding their sentinel!”

“Only if we matched the pair,” Nyma raised an eyebrow at him, “Otherwise we’d be enabling stalkers and such.  I don't know why you'd want his information anyway. You already have a sentinel, and it's not that asshole.”

“Ignore Lotor and his thing for me!  I'm legitimately about to go into bonding heat here—please just help me.”

“We can't help you here,” Nyma shrugged.  “Your sentinel’s a dick, Lance, but that's not here or there.  I can't help you find him, I can't release his private information.”

“Fuck you,” Lance cursed.

* * *

It was dark when he showed up at his door.  He was almost surprised that he heard a knock.  It seemed insane that Lance was at his door. Who came over at this time?  It must've been 3 AM, or later. The crickets’ chirping was overwhelming to Keith's sensitive ears.

“Wha—Lance?” he asked.

Lance looked wrecked, his cheeks flushed, but somehow he was still holding himself together.  “You left without saying anything, you fucking asshole.”

Keith felt all his goodwill drain right out of him.  “What, I couldn't go home? I don't want a fucking guide to extend my misery, Lance, so leave me alone!”

“But then what?!  You die?!” Lance grabbed Keith by the shoulders, shoving him back, “Am I that horrible that you’d rather be dead than with me?”

Keith felt so many things at that moment that his control slipped, and suddenly he was plunged deep into a fugue.  But focusing on Lance, on his heartbeat, on his beautiful eyes and the eyelashes that framed those blue irises, on his hair, and yes that was the shampoo he’d smelled earlier today—Lance was just.  Really really beautiful and too good to be true, and so far out of reach. And too kind for his own good.

But Keith knew that if he couldn't really have Lance, then it would destroy him to just be close.  He’d rather be entirely alone.

When he refocused, it was to lying in his bed, Lance beside him and humming sweetly.

“There you are, kitten,” Lance whispered happily, stroking back Keith’s hair and tucking it behind his ear.

“Why are you doing this to me?” Keith croaked, his heart thudding painfully in his chest.

“Because now that I've found you, I'm not going to let you go,” Lance let his thumb wander over Keith’s lower lip.

Found him…?

“What do you mean by…”

“You’re my sentinel, Keith.  I’m your guide. You can feel me, can't you?”

“...but Lotor Drule—” Keith started, confused.

“He isn't my sentinel,  _ you _ are.  Keith please, I had to find you because of the bonding heat, I need you.”

Lance pulled him forward into a kiss, and Keith couldn't help but melt against those lips, warm and sweet like brown sugar.  Lip gloss, his mind readily informed him. Lance was wearing lip gloss and it tasted like macaroons. 

He could feel  Lance’s skin against his palms and it really was too warm, like Lance had a fever.

“You’re in bonding heat for me?” Keith had to ask, one more time.

“Just you, always you, kitten,” Lance promised weakly, his baby blues glossy with need.  “Please give me this. I don't want to live in a world without you. I've been missing you my whole life and now you’re here and I  _ need _ you.”

“If you leave me after this…” Keith whispered, clutching back equally as weakly, “I wouldn't survive that.  I'm scared, Lance, I don't know how not to be independent. I don't know how to be a sentinel.”

“I'm a guide,” Lance promised.  “We’ll get there together. You’re meant for me, Keith.  You’re mine.”

“I can't do this,” He choked, hiding his eyes.  “I’m not good enough for you—I’m dying, you  _ can't _ bond with me.  You need someone better.”

“You’re the only one I could ever bond with.  You’re the only sentinel I’ll ever want,” Lance pressed his palms to Keith’s hip bones.  “Let me worship you. Let me bond to you. Let me be your pillar to stand on, let me lift you up.”

He ran his palms up Keith’s skin, warm and soft hands dragging up his shirt until it hooked on his shoulders.  The sudden cold ran a shiver up his spine, but he couldn't resist leaning in close, trying to soak up some of Lance’s heat.

“Let me love you,” Lance begged.

Keith touched the guide’s sharp cheekbone, reverent.  There was something just so impossible about Lance McClain that he could barely believe the words he was hearing.  Lance wasn't the man of his dreams–he wasn't James, who up until now bad been something Keith had lost–but Lance reminded him of everything he had loved about his boyfriend in a way that made Keith feel like everything was hazy, that nothing was real.

“If it’ll stop the bonding heat, you can have me…” Keith decided.  If it was a dream, a fantasy, then nothing bad would come of this. And if Lance was actually real, then he’d deal with this decision in the morning.  “Whatever you want.”

“Keith,” Lance surged in and kissed him quick, his hands finally yanking Keith’s shirt up and over his head.

Keith let himself touch, too.  He touched that sharp cheekbone, softened by baby fat and moisturizers on his skin every night, and Keith traced the line down to his neck.  He briefly remembered biting down here the other day, but he must not have left a mark because Lance’s skin was unblemished and a rich taupe that looked so different from the sickly yellow of Keith’s fingers.

“Can I touch—” Keith whispered, drawing back with panic.

“Please,” he said, his hands running down the bare expanse of Keith’s back, mapping out every scar and mole, every ridge on his spine and where his ribs poked out from under his skin.

“Are you sure?  I’m  _ sick _ , Lance,” Keith reminded him.

“I’m gonna heal you,” Lance murmured, “You’re going to get better.  This is going to be the first step. For both of us.”

Lance’s hands had reached the hem of Keith’s pants and teasingly dipped his fingertips under.  “This okay?”

Keith nodded, his voice gone.  He shimmied out of his jeans and underwear with help from Lance.  The guide cupped his butt lovingly, teasing as he ran his hands over the mounds and squeezed.

Lance marveled, “You’ve still got some meat on you back here.  It's cute.”

Keith rolled his eyes, hooking his bare leg around Lance’s clothed one.  “There's more to me than my ass.”

“Hmm… is there?  Everything else is so skinny.  You need to eat, kitten,” he cooed, leaning up to kiss Keith sweetly.  “Can I touch you? All of you?”

Keith nodded, his throat suddenly dry.  “Take whatever you want from me—just, just… keep touching me.”

“What do you like?” Lance murmured, “I want to make you feel really really good—how do you want to do this?”

“You…” Keith blushed, trembling under the gentle kisses, “I want to feel you all around me.  I want you inside me.”

Lance kissed him to seal the deal.  Keith got lost in the sensation. Not quite a fugue, but it felt deliciously close, enough so that Keith swore he felt like he could switch gears and change his focus to the background senses—the snap of a bottle and the scent of lube, the slick sound of the liquid warming between two fingers—but why would he want to, when Lance’s kiss felt like heaven itself caressing him?  The touch of a wet finger to his puckered hole came as a surprise, but Lance just circled his rim softly, massaging his tense muscles.

The first finger went easy, painless, and Keith shuddered on Lance’s chest, his heart pounding.  It'd been so long since he’d had sex. And Lance. How was Lance still even managing to think, with the bonding heat clouding his mind?

“Are you okay?” Keith whispered against Lance’s lips.

Lance huffed a laugh, burying it in the crook of Keith’s neck as he slid in another finger.  “Kitten, I should be asking you that.”

“The bonding heat,” Keith protested, but it was lost in the sensation of Lance curling his fingers, pressing so so close to where he needed but not quite.  He moaned, rocking back, trying to slide those fingers just a little bit deeper.

“I’m doing great,” Lance teased, scissoring his fingers and stretching Keith wide, massaging away any resistance.  “Better every minute you keep giving me those sweet noises.”

“Fuck,” Keith breathed.

Lance slid in a third finger, curling them and pressing right underneath his prostate and it was good but not enough and it was going to drive Keith crazy.

All of his senses were focused on Lance’s fingers dancing inside him, so when Lance traced a finger, feather light, up the length of his cock, Keith’s first reaction was to moan, and his second was to fugue entirely; his mind lost to hyperfocus.  He could feel every groove of Lance’s fingerprint, and even the lightest touch felt heavy, like too much. He could come from just that—the pressure of Lance's fingertip to the head of his cock.

Lance squeezed, and Keith came with a choked scream, the feeling of all five of Lance’s fingers on him too much.  And the pleasure whited out his mind, for how intense it was. He felt his jellied knees and limp arms give out on him, as the feeling of his cum shooting out of his dick was too much, that it felt so intensely that Keith could do nothing but sob brokenly.

“Come back to me, kitten,” Lance coaxed, and the sound of his voice eased Keith back into his body.  Keith hiccuped, trying to slow his breathing.

“I fugued,” he explained hopelessly, his weak fingers grasping at Lance’s sides.

“I know, Keith,” Lance kissed the top of his head.  “Stay here with me, okay? I need you.”

“Fuck,” Keith swore, trying to fight down his self-hatred.  “How the fuck could I even—when I can't keep it together for an hour even with the most talented guide in the city literally trying to bond with me.”

“Shh… no, no, no,” Lance kissed him, sliding his fingers out.  “Your senses are so strong that it's hard to resist fuguing. That's not your fault.  You just found your guide, you’re supposed to be a little overwhelmed by it.”

Keith hid his face, gritting his teeth.  “Just fuck me already.”

“Keith,” Lance scolded, “I can sense your emotions.  I know you’re still upset. I'm not going to do anything with you until you’re feeling better.”

“And how long is that control going to last?” He grumbled.

Lance grabbed his face with both hands, and Keith grimaced at the sensation of lubed fingers on his cheek.  Lance made him look at him though, made him stare the guide straight in the eyes. “Forever, Keith. It will last forever.  I'll die before I force myself on you. I can leave right now if you really don't want to bond. Right now, Keith.”

Keith swallowed, “You can feel what I feel, right?  ...so you should know that's not what I want.”

“I can tell you're scared.  That you’re disappointed,” Lance lingered for a moment, letting Keith’s face go in favor of tracing the sentinel’s spine.  “And mildly horny, but that means nothing.”

“I'm scared of fuguing again,” Keith clarified, “Disappointed in myself.  But not you.”

Lance breathed out, “Babe, no.  Watching your sense of touch overwhelm you was hot as fuck.  You came so easily. Like, my boner is so bad right now. No pressure or anything but don't ever doubt that I want you because, fuck, I want you so bad.”

Keith shyly slid his legs open a little wider, his hole fluttering against Lance’s fingertips.

“You can…” Keith whispered. “You can have me.”

“Keith,” Lance moaned as his cock rubbed up in the crease of Keith’s ass.  Like a prayer slipping from his brown sugar lips, he begged yet again, “Keith.”

Keith relaxed his muscles and let himself open, wide and unhurried.  Lance’s cock caught on the edge, the head thick and eager, and he moaned, wiggling his hips to better align them.  He wanted Lance inside him, all around him, keeping him safe. He wanted Lance to block out the outside world for him.  Lance was strong like that.

The head popped inside, and already it was so big and thick that Keith couldn't help but tremble.

“Relax, kitten,” Lance rasped, his large palm pressing down on Keith’s stomach.  His thumb massaged gentle circles as a little bit more of him slid inside.

All he could do was listen, his body easing its tension, his legs becoming boneless as they draped over Lance’s back.  The whole world narrowed down to Lance’s voice, Lance’s cock, and Lance’s warm weight draped over him. It felt like a fugue, but better, and Keith never wanted to leave this bubble of bliss.

“G-guide,” he choked, feeling Lance finally seated as deep as he could go.

“Sentinel,” Lance replied, his voice thick with desire, “Are you feeling okay?  Do you need a minute?”

Keith shook his head, wrapping his arms around his guide’s back, pulling him in.  The softness of Lance’s skin under his palms just made him want to be closer, for their chests to be fully touching and their mouths locked in a kiss.

“I’m okay,” he mumbled against Lance’s neck, burying his face there.

Lance hummed, and he slowly picked up a pace, gently rocking into Keith's oversensitive body.  Each push inside had Keith’s breath hitching, the head of Lance’s dick rubbing against his soft spot inside.

“Mmmph,” Keith whined, muffled against his guide’s dark skin.

“Feeling better?” Lance asked him, his voice gentle.

Embarrassingly enough for Keith, it was this sweet question that got him.  His dick pulsed, his orgasm almost whiting out his vision as he gasped. Everything felt so good, the constant pressure against his prostate making his eyes roll back and his back arch even as it quickly became overwhelming.

James had never been so gentle with him, so caring, so willing to stop and ask if he was enjoying himself.  Just the thought of Lance caring so much made Keith’s cheeks burn, his heart pound, his spent cock twitch helplessly.

“God, you’re amazing,” Lance whispered, pressing a kiss to his sweaty cheek.  “I’m going to take you, okay? Just a little further.”

Keith nodded, clinging tight as his guide began to move again.

It was still gentle, still careful to respect Keith’s tired body, but Lance picked up the pace, increasing the intensity until Keith felt like nothing more than a vessel, something designed only to pleasure his guide and nothing else.  All he could do was exist in Lance’s grip and breathe, listening to the sound of their coupling, the harsh intake of air, the slick slide of his guide into his body.

Keith shuddered, tightening up around the length of his guide, and that was enough.

Lance broke like a wave, the two of them crashing back down on the mattress as his hips stuttered, hot seed dripping out from around his cock as he pulled out.

“I-inside,” Keith stammered, hitching his leg back up around Lance’s hips.

Keith shoved Lance off of him, pushing his guide onto his back so Keith could slide his length back inside him.  It wasn't until he was filled up again that he felt he could relax, lying down on Lance's deliciously bare chest.

He could hear his guide’s thumping heartbeat, thundering away steadily under his cheek, and he’d never felt better.


	6. Can You Trust Your Memories?

Lance woke up, the bonding heat gone from his system, and his whole body warm and sated.  Especially his cock. It felt surrounded by slick skin, like he’d fallen asleep still inside a toy.

Lance shifted his hips, before realizing he was trapped under a warm body.  Partially trapped inside one, even, his cock still buried inside tight heat.

He blearily opened his eyes, taking inventory of his limbs.  His arms were wrapped around the same person he was still inside of, and that person’s dark hair was resting on his chest.

Keith.

Lance sighed, tingly happiness rushing through his veins.  His cute, asshole sentinel, who was still there, still allowing Lance so close.

Lance carefully pulled out, adjusting his sentinel so he could stretch out his limbs.  His neck, weirdly stiff, was the first thing to crack.

“Morning, star shine,” Lance whispered, cradling Keith closer in his arms.

Keith snuffled, murmuring without truly being awake, “‘shmell wike shweat.”

Real cute, Lance thought sarcastically.  He took a sniff of his armpit, just in case, and scrunched his nose.  Alright, maybe he smelled a little ripe.

Wasn't his fault the whole room stunk of sex and body-odor.  Well, at least not all his fault. He definitely contributed a little to the smell of sex.

Lance had been in the throes of bonding heat.  It was any wonder he’d even managed to get to Keith’s house after full-bodily threatening Shiro to tell him the fucking address or he’d cut open the sentinel’s testicles like a watermelon on a hot summer day.  The fact he probably should've stopped to shower before so he didn't offend his sentinel’s delicate nose or find a pair of silk pajamas so he could snuggle all night with his newly bonded partner, all of that well to the wayside and none of it seemed to matter for last night besides.

On top of it all, Lance was alarmingly laying on scratchy cotton sheets, the likes of which could cause all kinds of skin abrasions to a regular person, let alone a hypersensitive sentinel.  Lance might've been naked, which was good enough as far as the PJs went, but Keith had been wearing a ratty t-shirt and jeans when he showed up.

His sentinel was basically living in sensory hell.  Lance had worried about his sentinel before, but he’d never imagined that he’d be living in a place that would actively hurt him.  Lance knew how sentinels were meant to live, and it wasn't like this.

Lance sighed, pulling Keith close for one more quick snuggle, inhaling the scent of him from his tangled hair and relishing in the warmth of his skin.  He only treasured it for a minute, before he pressed a kiss to the top of Keith’s head and slid himself out of bed.

First things first were probably getting dressed and cleaning himself up, Lance thought, and then he could tackle the rest of Keith’s apartment.

He found more horrors in the shower, after turning the lights on and realizing that the whole bathroom was a disgusting mess.  The worst part was the tub, which needed a huge scrub before Lance even wanted to step in it, and then the second worst was the toilet, which probably didn't even deserve to be cleaned.  This bathroom was a place of sensory hell; the smell of vomit and stomach acid clinging to the walls and the lights buzzing and flickering.

Lance knew his sentinel had been dying.  He supposed it made sense that he couldn't get himself up to clean very often.  Not when the mess looked like this.

Lance grabbed a sponge from the cabinet under the sink and turned the shower on, figuring he could get started on cleaning himself and the shower all at once.

The water was a hell of its own; hard, sputtering, and jetting out with enough force that Lance would never complain about his own shower again.  The shampoo choices equally subpar, in that all Keith apparently owned was bar soap.

Lance almost wanted to rewind time and drag Keith back to his own apartment last night, and then just never let his sentinel leave.  But that would raise up its own problems, and Lance knew, sinking heavy in his stomach, that he was going to stay here, and clean everything, because taking a sick, dying sentinel into a place with so many unfamiliar sights and sounds and smells would be its own version of sensory chaos.

Showered but still feeling somewhat unclean, Lance took to scrubbing out the tub and the shower head.  Bar soap wasn't going to get the place clean, but it was alright for now. Lance didn't want to leave before Keith woke up.

The amount of grime draining down the shower was so disgusting that Lance felt his stomach churn uncomfortably.  Keith didn't deserve to have been living like this.

Lance remembered those pictures, the ones he’d seen so long ago before they’d even brought Keith in.

Keith had been fat-cheeked and his hair had been shorter, his eyes happy and his smile handsome.  His skin had a healthy flush to it and his body carried the weight of a few extra good meals with pride.  

The man he’d bonded to last night was a week or two away from rotting in a grave.  Keith’s hair was long but brittle, tangled, and his eyes spent more time glazed over than attentive.  His frame was so frail that Lance had been able to see his ribs the whole time. He hadn't truly smiled, not even once, the whole time Lance had known him.

Keith hadn't done this to himself.  His life spiraling out of control was not  _ his _ fault.

Lance clenched his fist, his teeth, and shook with rage.  If he ever found the man that did this to his sentinel, who kidnapped them both, Lance would kill that man with a dose of his own medicine.

He stepped out the shower, retrieved his own clothes from where he’d discarded them last night, and got dressed, even though putting on the dirty clothes felt gross on his wet skin.

Then, in succession, he tackled the kitchen, the rest of the bathroom, and somewhat of the bedroom.

It took Lance hours.  He must've started at 7 and it was now something close to 3.  The weirdest part was that Keith wasn't waking up; his sentinel had barely moved since this morning.

Lance hadn't been worried, but now dread was creeping into his stomach.

He climbed back into the bed, getting close to Keith and gently touching him on the shoulder.

Upon closer inspection, tear tracks streamed down over Keith’s nose and cheek, and a thin string of drool clung from his mouth to the mattress.  His breathing was erratic, and his pupils shifted rapidly under his eyelids.

He wasn't in any pain, and he wasn't panicking, so Lance hadn't been able to tell at all.  Keith was so used to fugues that tired acceptance was all he greeted them with. That was going to be a huge problem for them.

“Keith,” Lance said, forcing his voice to be loud and commanding.  His sentinel needed to listen, and he put the full weight of that coercion in his tone. “Wake up.”

Keith seized awake with a gasp, his glassy eyes seeking out his guide instinctually.

“Tone down your nose until all you smell is the bar soap from the bathroom.”

The sentinel shuddered, but his body relaxed, tension leaving his shoulders.

“Take your sense of touch and dull it until you feel nothing more than warm, comfortable cotton.”

Keith melted, boneless as he was compelled to listen.  Lance liked the feelings of warmth and safety his sentinel was oozing, liked them so much he wanted to go back in time and mate his sentinel as soon as he saw him.  He had never felt so happy being needed, but that's all he’d ever wanted was to be something to someone, to be useful, to have a purpose. Being a bondless guide for so long had made his shields weak and brittle as he slowly felt his hope fade away and world-weariness wore him down.  His sentinel though, his sentinel needed him. He made his sentinel feel safe. There had never been a moment in Lance’s life where he felt more complete.

“Tone your sight down until you can see all of my face.  Can you see me? Talk to me, sweetheart.”

“L-Lance?” Keith stammered.  A little more focus was returning to those eyes.

“Yes, I’m here,” Lance cooed, gently running the back of his fingers over Keith’s soft cheekbone.

“You’re here…?” the sentinel murmured sleepily, “I thought you were just a dream…”

Lance felt cold spread from his suddenly frozen heart, chilling all of his limbs.

“You thought last night was a dream?” He said numbly.

“Felt like a dream,” Keith smiled, silly and happy and Lance could feel that warmth too, down to his toes.  “The kindest guide with the prettiest eyes, who could be with anyone in the world, coming to me, saying I was his matching pair?  It's the kind of thing that would only happen to me two years ago.”

Lance melted, tugging his sentinel into his arms and clinging on, tears prickling his eyes.  “Of course I chose you! I spent so much time feeling empty. I've been longing for you for longer than you even knew that you were a sentinel.”

Keith sleepily nuzzled Lance’s neck, his eyes fluttering back closed.  “You’re real?”

“I am,” Lance reassured, “You’re mine, Keith.  I’m never letting you go.”

* * *

It took quite a bit of coaxing but Lance finally got his sleepy sentinel out of bed.

“Back to the lab,” he cheered, while Keith let out a long groan into his thermos of coffee.

“Is all this necessary?” Keith asked, earplugs securely in his ears, his nose and mouth covered by a doctor’s mask, and his eyes shielded by sunglasses.  Lance had grabbed it all at the local corner store along with the coffee. Technically he didn't have the money to spend on this but he wasn't going to place more importance on not paying the minimum for his credit card than the life of his sentinel.

“Very.  We’re taking a taxi, and the closer you are to me and the more blocks you have from your senses will help,” Lance admitted.  “Last time you fugued, but I'm determined to keep that from happening this time.”

“You act like I’ll die if I fugue,” Keith muttered.

Lance tucked Keith closer under his arm, trying to pretend he wasn't being a worrywart mother hen one day into their bond.  “Pidge figured out that when you fugue, it basically gives you super aids.”

“Super aids,” Keith snorted.  “Okay, I guess super aids is bad.”

“Of course it is!  It's super aids!” Lance mock-gasped.  “She’s going to prescribe you immunosuppressants and we just have to hope to God you don't get  _ actually _ sick before we can figure out how exactly the drug fucked up your system, and how to reverse that damage.”

Keith stayed quiet for a moment.  “You really aren't giving up on me?”

“I would never give up on you.  You’re my sentinel. You’re going to live if I have to restart your heart myself this time,” Lance pressed a kiss to Keith’s ruffled dark hair.

“Sap,” he blushed, his face hidden by both his hair and his scarf.

“Have to be.  And hey, it looks like our ride is here.”

The taxi ride was stressful at first but Keith tucked a kittenish yawn into Lance’s collar and settled down to sleep after a few moments of Lance humming to provide a counterbalance to the loud stimuli of the car.  More sleep probably wasn't any good for Keith but Lance had no intention of complaining that he was finally feeling calm and comfortable enough with Lance to trust he’d keep him from fuguing in his presence.

The lab wasn't far, and when Keith made sleepy protests to Lance about waking him up once they’d arrived, the guide decided just to let him sleep longer.  He kind of wanted to talk to Pidge and Hunk without Keith for a while.

And he’d definitely need to do some explaining to Dr. Lotor.

It was best if he kept his emotional little sentinel far away from that screaming session.  Lance wasn't looking forward to being accused of betrayal himself. The lone alpha sentinel had made it more than clear he’d considered Lance his guide.  Their state of unbondedness was just due to their age difference, Lotor had always explained, and that twelve years along with Lotor’s status as unofficial chief of the city of course made it hard for Lance to see him as an equal and therefore bond with him.

Lance had connected the dots the first time he saw Keith that Dr. Lotor was full of shit, but that didn't mean his mentor was not fully convinced of what he’d been telling Lance for years.

So.  It was best for everyone, especially Keith, to stay out of that nasty bomb waiting to go off.

Lance kept those thoughts carefully shielded as he carried his sentinel over to the medical cot that Lance had first seen him on.  He carefully placed him down, covering up Keith in a warm blanket. As an extra precaution (and also just to get it off of him) he took off his twice worn shirt and tucked it near Keith’s hand, so that his sentinel could smell him nearby.

He blessedly could change into the clean clothes he kept at the lab for emergencies.  Albeit those emergencies typically being chemical spills, but this was a similar deal.

Lance found Pidge and Hunk in one of those very same chemical labs, staring at what looked like Keith’s blood samples under an electron scanning microscope.

“Fascinating…” Pidge remarked, watching the display where the bright electric blue particles danced around in the slide.

“Yeah, my sentinel is pretty fascinating,” Lance said, sliding in next to Hunk as he grabbed an Oreo from an open package on the lab table.  “What happened to Dr. Lotor’s no food rule?”

“We all subconsciously agreed it was bullshit,” Pidge snapped, not moving away from her microscope.

“Pidge pulled an all-nighter staring at these samples,” Hunk explained, “From a scientific standpoint they’re unreal.  They latch onto DNA strands and alter them as they get cycled through the body. The problem is that the DNA need to already have the right structure to respond.  If not, then the DNA basically mutate uncontrollably until the drug kills the person it's inside.”

“Jesus Christ,” Lance swore softly.  “Is that what’s happening to Keith?”

Pidge cut in, “Surprisingly no.  He had the right DNA. And so did you and Shiro.  I analyzed all your blood samples and the drug inside.  As it turns out Shiro has a slightly different formula inside him than Keith does.”

“It's not all the same drug?” Lance asked.  Hunk handed him a whole stack of images from when they’d had both Shiro and his own blood samples under the microscope.  “Wait, I recognize this.”

Pidge swiveled around in her chair, her face almost comical in its shock, “You what?!”

“The drug looks really similar to my most recent project with Hunk,” Lance tapped the paper, “Dr. Lotor’s been working on trying to transmit live guide cells with me for months but Hunk and I can't figure out how to keep the cells alive long enough once they leave the body.  You know how when someone has the recessive gene but they grow up surrounded by so many guides that they become low-level empaths themselves? I think whoever created this drug based it off of the transformative qualities of guide and sentinel cells themselves.”

Pidge and Hunk shared a look, “The drug is  _ alive _ !”

Lance laughed, before he felt a worried tug on his consciousness.  His sentinel was awake.

“I gotta go back to Keith.  He was napping but I don't want him to wake up without me,” he excused, leaping off the countertop and heading towards the door.

“Wait, I’ll come with you!” Pidge sat up, rubbing her tired eyes, “I promised you over text I’d take a look at him, see what treatments I can think of.  Maybe prescribe him those immunosuppressants from last time.”

“It’d be best if I talked to him alone first, but I’ll bring him right back here.  Promise,” Lance winked.

* * *

Keith woke to a familiar, sterile ceiling, and an extremely unfamiliar man sitting next to him.  The man was tall, with a skin color that would've been a nice dark taupe if not for how bloodless and corpse-like he seemed.  His hair was long and white, gathered back in a low ponytail, and his eyes were the kind of furious that made Keith immediately on edge.  

This man was not a friend.  Fear and cautious anger spread throughout his veins but he kept his mouth closed.

“Keith Kogane, I presume?” The man smoothed out his doctor’s scrubs, thick latex gloves over his fingers.  “I haven't heard much about you, but I see you’re quite comfortable in my private, closed access laboratory.”

Keith felt his heart try to melt through his skin like a giant ball of acid.  He’d never felt more exposed or unsafe.

“Just sleeping in spaces you don't belong.  How rude you are, sentinel. I’m the alpha of this tribe.  You should know better than to touch my things,” Dr. Lotor tapped his fingers on the countertop, his long, nails clacking through the rubber.

“Lance brought me here,” Keith whispered, all of his hackles raised.

“Yes but you see, Lance is just another thing of mine that you shouldn’t touch,” Dr. Lotor tsked.  “Did he convince you he wanted you? That what you had was real? That's how the game works, you know.  That's how he makes you lose your mind for him."

“But we—” Keith choked, his words sticking in his throat.

“—had sex?  Ah, but I know Lance, and he probably penetrated you,” The doctor laughed at Keith’s expression, “Your face confirms it all.  You do know the bond between a sentinel and a guide only seals if the sentinel leaves his seed inside the guide, don't you?”

No, that couldn't be right, Keith had… had definitely felt a change.

“He deceived you, Keith.  He’s bonded to me. He’s been bonded to me this whole time,” Dr. Lotor reached out and stroked Keith’s hair back, and each brush of dry cold rubber against his temple had him shuddering, his whole body repulsed by the false act of kindness.

“N-no,” Keith stuttered, trying to get away from that awful hand and equally awful voice.  “I know that's not true.”

“Oh?  How so?”

“I don't smell him on you,” Keith snapped, his fists clenching.  “If he was your guide, his scent would linger with yours.”

“And yet if he was your guide… his scent would also linger with you, and neither of us truly smell like him.  He left his dirty shirt here with you as a trick,” the doctor stood up, pulling off his gloves. “This was a nice chat.  Keep what I said in mind. Sometimes Lance falls for his own little scenarios, but he always comes back to me in the end.”

Keith curled in on himself, the blanket not enough to keep him feeling safe anymore.  The cold of the room was permeating every pore and sneaking in under his clothes until he felt tears in his eyes.  God, why had he ever thought it was alright to hope?

Doctor Lotor tossed his gloves in the trash just as the door burst open and Lance stumbled inside.

“Keith?” was the first thing out of his mouth, but all Keith could hear was the ringing in his head that said _‘Sometimes Lance falls for his own little scenarios’_.  

It didn't matter that Lance ignored that Lotor was still in the room, that he came straight to Keith.  Everything had been too good to be real. Of course it was just a trap. This was the cruelest thing he could think of, and the deep-rooted pain of it hurt so badly that he just wanted to die where he was.

The fact that his back wasn't against a wall freaked him out.  He felt distinctly unsafe and he needed his back against a wall; he needed to know nothing and no one was behind him.  He needed Lance not to touch him.

Lance was reaching for him, but Keith roared, jerking back from the touch.  He didn't trust these strangers’ hands on him. He didn't trust Lance's gentle fingers—not when he could smell his sugary lies from a mile away if he tried.  Not when it was that gentle love that broke him.

Somehow, Lance understood that Keith didn't want to be touched, and backed off, so finally Keith could growl and hiss and reassure himself he was safe in his own skin.

He could only vaguely hear the conversation, rage flooding his mind and Keith weirdly, disconnectedly knew that he’d gone feral.  His body was tucked up in a corner, hissing and ready to kill if anyone got closer.

Lance.  Lance was yelling?

He vaguely registered that Lance was yelling and that Dr. Lotor was touching the guide’s hand.  He didn't like that. The other sentinel, weak and old, he shouldn't be touching Keith’s guide. He had no right to touch Lance.

Why didn't Lance stop him, push him away?  Why would he let another sentinel touch him so openly?!

Keith roared, lunging forward and tackling the weak sentinel down, his nails going for the throat.  He’d show everyone why he was too dangerous to mess with. No other sentinel would touch  _ his guide _ without his permission, never again.

Especially not this weak sentinel who wouldn't even look him in the eye.  This frail old withered evil man was no match for him. 

The sentinel was yabbering on but Keith didn't care about useless words from a waif’s mouth.  He dug in his nails further, baring his teeth. He could smell blood, and he relished in it.

But suddenly, there were arms around him.  Warmth. The smell of salt. The tiniest prick of pain in his throat.  The scent of his guide.

Keith paused, leaning back into that solid heat.  It felt good. So good. And that brush of a soft thumb across his cheek reminded him he was tired.  Tired and scared and hurt, but something about the warmth… the warmth meant everything would be okay now.  The warmth meant he could simply close his eyes. And rest.

Keith let himself sink into that floating feeling.  He closed his eyes and felt his feet picked up off the ground.  Safe, the warmth reminded him.

He felt safe.  This was okay.

Keith slowly opened his eyes again, staring up into Lance’s eyes.  They weren't the soft passionate eyes he expected. They were boiling with anger.  Anger that Keith couldn't feel from him. All he felt was safe warmth.

He tried to cling to consciousness—his guide needed him, he was angry, he needed his sentinel… but it was impossible to fight that feeling.  Safe, he thought, before closing his eyes again and drifting off.

* * *

“What the fuck were you doing in here?” Lance finally asked, his sentinel once again returning to a peaceful sleep.  He might've induced that one, both with a tranquilizer and his own abilities as a guide, but Keith had responded to Lance coming into the room by going feral, for God’s sake.  Whatever Lotor had said, he had destroyed whatever trust and confidence they’d managed to build in each other over the last day.

Lotor continued to fix his broken glasses, unbending them from the extreme angle Keith had twisted them into, and popping out the broken lens.  Finally, he said, “I knew you were sneaking around behind my back in my own lab. Really, Lance? Another pity case? That sentinel is going to die without his proper guide.”

“I am his proper guide!” Lance hissed, swearing that if guides could go feral, he absolutely would.  “It’s not pity. He’s  _ mine _ .”

“Sometimes you get too wrapped up in your own lies.  You and I both knew we were destined to bond as soon as I hired you to be my intern.  You said yourself that I had a kind of magnetism like no other. But your unbonded guide work always takes it a step too far, where you question our compatibility.  This happened the last time you cared for an unbonded sentinel too,” Lotor stared him deep in the eyes, his voice strangely melodic. 

“You’re so full of bullshit, you know I don't think you’re my sentinel!  And Keith isn't a pity case, he’s not like anyone else I've worked with!”

“But isn't he?  You can't remember it well but the rest of us here do.  You just couldn't let poor Plaxum suffer, so you tricked yourself into believing you were in a bonding heat and fucked her.  She started feeling like she was going insane when she couldn't feel the bond between you two. She eventually succumbed to insanity and jumped off an overpass into the busiest highway in town, and you conveniently forgot her and the lesson she brought with her—because now you’ve done the exact same thing with that disaster in your arms.”

Lance stared at Lotor, wracking his brain for any explanation that what he was saying was true.  “I didn't know you were such a huge liar, Good Doctor.”

Lotor smiled a wry smile, “Of course, your memory has always been poor, Lance.  You barely remember something that happened two weeks ago, let alone your pity cases.  You can't remember whole stretches of your life, and everyone here has to remind you. You don't get to forget Plaxum anymore, Lance.  Not when there are consequences. The man in your arms will not live without his real destined guide. If you just gave in and bonded with me, you’d finally realize that what you’re doing is wrong.  It's slapping a band-aid on a severed leg. You can't save those sentinels, Lance. You can't save the whole world like you've always wanted.”

Lance trembled.  He really couldn't remember.  He couldn't remember Plaxum. There were whole weeks, days, and even months where he didn't remember anything about his own life, but for some reason he’d always thought it was like someone had put him away, where he didn't do anything until he got back and could remember it.

“I…  I don't trust you,” Lance said, finally, “And I don't want you going near Keith again.  I won't make the mistake of bringing him back here."

“Pretending that what I've said is just a lie doesn't make it so, Lance,” Lotor said, his voice sinfully soft.  “If you really care about Keith, you’d drop the charade. There was no bonding heat, there is no bond. You made it all up in your head.”

“You’re wrong,” Lance’s head snapped up.

“Am I?  Why don't you ask Pidge if you’re faking it?  She had some harsh words to say on the matter,” Lotor whistled, looking pleased as punch despite the bleeding bites on his face and the scratches marring up his neck.  “And one last thing? Get that sentinel out of my lab space and don't try to lie to me again, sweetheart.”

* * *

Pidge would like to preface by explaining that by no means was comforting her coworkers part of her job requirement.  Nor was ignoring data right in front of her, or lying to her boss.

Lance seemed to think otherwise.

“What did you say to Dr. Lotor?!” He said as he slammed down his bag on the counter.

Pidge told him shortly, “I just filled him in on your new bonded state.”

“So why does he know I can't connect over the bond like I should've?  Why did he say you had something to say about it?!” 

She winced, “I didn't mean to say that it was weird you couldn't affect Keith like Allura affects Shiro.  But it's weird, and it's not the first time you’ve felt a connection to a sentinel that wasn't there.”

Lance took a deep, shaking breath.  “What the fuck do you mean?”

Pidge crossed her arms, “You don't remember Plaxum?”

“No!  I don't!” Lance yelled, and his anger was projecting so strong that Pidge could feel her shields cracking.  “You know those kidnappings where I just couldn't fucking remember where I’d gone ? It's like that!”

Pidge tried to steadily emit feelings of calm and patience, but Lance wasn't having it.

“You knew she needed a guide to live any longer so you tried bonding with her because you said you felt a spark.  It didn't work, but you two kind of pretended it did for a while, because she was getting to the point where she couldn't tell left from right,” Pidge said, “but on one of her lucid days, she decided she couldn't stand being unbonded any longer and jumped off a bridge.”

Lance grabbed a stress ball off her table, squeezing it hard.  Something in his demeanor shifted, from anger to hopelessness.

“So I really killed someone,” he whispered.  “Someone I can't even remember died because I lied to her.”

“No,” Pidge said, backtracking, “No no no no no!  She was suicidal when the guide center recommended you to her and we all knew that.  You managed to keep her relatively happy and alive for like, 2 whole weeks. She was an active risk with or without you, and you really did help her!”

Lance looked up at her, vulnerable blue eyes meeting hers.

“We knew you forgot her but we kind of wanted you to!” Pidge said, pulling out her phone to show him an older album from last year, where she still had a picture of Lance with Plaxum curled up in his arms, the two of them with big smiles on their faces.  “You felt so guilty after because you wouldn't stop blaming yourself like you are now.”

“Who wouldn't feel guilty?  I lied to her!” Lance stressed, “and you think I’m lying to Keith now too?”

Pidge worried her lip.  “I’m just worried. You have to admit your ability to guide him is weirdly lacking, especially since we all know you’re the most talented guide in the city.  But I never thought you were intentionally faking it! I’m a guide too, and your panic and your affection for him, it's all real. With Plaxum you felt you had to try because you liked her as a person—but with Keith you never felt the same kind of duty.”

She reached out, grabbing Lance’s hand, “And I’m sorry.  I told Lotor about your bond and you know me, all he had to do was prod a little bit and all my worries spilled out.  I don't want you getting hurt, Lance, you’re one of my best friends.”

He squeezed her hand back, his emotional turmoil locked back away behind his heavy shields.  She appreciated his tiny smile back, tired as it was.

“I’m going to take Keith home.  Lotor told me he’s not allowed back, and whatever he said to him really must have messed with his mind if it made him go feral… My bonded sentinel or not, it doesn't matter.  I’m going to save him. He’s not going to be another Plaxum. I’ll find him his destined guide if I have to.”

Pidge liked that determined smile.  “Shiro, Hunk, and I all have your back.  And text me when I can come make a doctor’s visit for Keith.  Poor guy needs some immunosuppressants before he fugues himself into organ failure again.”

Lance winced.  “Poor phrasing.”

“Just being honest,” She said, but she crossed her arms and leaned back, tilting her head to the side. “Would you rather I told you that he needs professional medical assistance likely immediately if he ever hopes for a full recovery?  That immunosuppressants might make him worse?”

“Nah, keep that awful shit to yourself,” Lance frowned, “I have to work with what we have.  I’ll ask about going to a doctor but I get the feeling he might rather die. I'm not going to stop trying to help him.”

“Alright, Lance,” she sighed.  “Be careful, okay? You may want to save him but we don't want to lose you in the process.  And you were finally happy when you came to the Lab today, I could feel it. Hunk and I just want to see that smile again, we want to feel your shields strong as ever.  Actually being bonded, if that's what this is, it could save you too.”

“Thanks, Pidge,” Lance smiled back at her.  He still felt cold, angry, but some of his warmth lingered on the surface of his emotions like a sunlit ocean; cold and dark below but warm tropical waves above.  He wasn't angry at her anymore.

But Pidge could tell that deep down, Lance was furious.  She pitied the fool who invoked that anger.

* * *

Lance managed to get Keith the entirety of the trip back to the man’s apartment with only two or three weird questions.  The taxi ride was quiet, with Lance capitalizing on the fact that while the tranquilizer worked its way through Keith's system, Lance was still free to hold the man he had been so sure was his sentinel.  Even now, his instincts screamed at him, begging him to cuddle his sentinel, to say something to fix all this mess so they were never torn apart. But Keith reacted to Lance with snarling rage and wild eyes.

Whatever Lotor said, it had wrecked them.

Lance inhaled Keith’s clean scent, tears gathering in his eyes.  This was probably the last time he would get to be so close for a long time.

Whatever Lotor had said must be wrong.  Lance had felt the bonding heat, he'd felt desperate and hot within his skin, he’d felt that horrible connection, the dread of impending death as Keith's heart stopped as clear as it was his own.  There's no way Keith wasn't his sentinel. He had to be.

That didn't mean that Pidge and Lotor were wrong.  Something had gone very wrong with their bond, perhaps before it even formed.  Lance had no clue why his words and his power just couldn't reach Keith, and he had no clue why.  For all he knew and understood of bonds, Keith should be the sentinel that responds to him best. And yet he was one of the worst.

Maybe it was because Keith was never meant to be a sentinel, and Lance was never meant to be a guide.  Maybe they weren't destined because they were never meant to be at all, maybe they were just pretending as they imitated the bonds and reactions they saw around them and were confused when they never worked.

Lance shook his head, trying to clear out those thoughts before they destroyed his shields altogether.

Keith's breathing picked up, like he was waking, and the guide froze, terrified of how Keith would react when he really did wake.  He probably should rearrange them, give the sentinel more space so that they both were at a safe distance, but Keith nuzzled in under Lance’s jaw and sighed, settling back down into his medicated sleep.

And Lance settled back into his thoughts, tucking the blankets more securely around Keith as he procrastinated doing what he should: letting go.


	7. Mending Us

Keith woke to the smell of ammonia and the sound of his sink running in the kitchenette.  The footsteps of a man, tall, but not heavy set.

The shadow on his floor cast the man’s broad shoulders into stark relief, and he smelled like lemon soap and chemicals.  Keith's mind recognized the soft musk underneath, and readily informed him: Lance. Not James.

Not like James was ever really into cleaning.  Or sticking around when the going got rough. Or humming such sweet melodies.

Keith rubbed at his eyes, trying to remember what all happened.  His whole mind was a blur.

Had they gone to the lab?  They must've, right? Why were they back?  Nothing in his recent memory made any sense.

He picked himself up out of bed, his whole body stiff as he tiptoed into the kitchen.

Lance turned, his eyes dark and unreadable.  “Hey.”

“Hey yourself.  What happened? I thought we were going to the lab.  Did I fugue again?” Keith asked, yawning as he went for his good coffee mug.

Lance’s confusion was projected so strongly Keith was confused himself, his head suddenly blank as he stared at the chipped porcelain.  What was he doing with this again?

“You don't remember?” Lance asked, his voice deeper than usual.

“Nothing,” Keith said as he remembered he wanted a drink of water to clear out the sleepy junk from his throat.  He filled up his glass at the sink. “I'm getting real sick of being jerked around like some kind of doll. I hate that I don't have any control of my life anymore.”

Lance swallowed and said, voice soft and deep like a well, “We went to the lab yesterday. Dr. Lotor talked to you, and whatever he said made you go feral.  I had to inject you with a tranquilizer.”

Keith choked on his water.  “What?!”

“You don't remember anything?” Lance asked.

“Nothing,” Keith confirmed.  “I remember the taxi ride over but it feels like when you've lost your keys and you can't remember the last place you had them.  I have some kind of understanding that I existed but…”

The guide frowned at him, crossing his arms.  “Maybe it’ll come back to you. I'm sorry in advance about the tranq dart, but being feral is more detrimental to your health than the dart.”

“Do what you have to,” Keith sighed, slumping to the ground against his kitchen counter.  He felt safer, curled up small and with his back against something solid. “I do feel better today though.  More human. My senses are easier to manage.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Keith drank more of his water, his bones aching and his stomach twisting and his whole body tired and shaking, but his head blissfully painless and his thoughts were neat, orderly instead of chaos. “You're cleaning my apartment?”

“I was, but the smell has gotta be killing you if it feels like it's burnt off all my nose hairs,” The guide smiled sheepishly, waving around the now freshly scrubbed kitchen.  Lance had worked miracles with the mold clinging around the constantly leaking kitchen sink, and the thick layer of dust on the rarely touched counters.

“Puts hairs on your chest,” Keith mumbled, remembering what his ex-boyfriend used to say whenever they cleaned together.  Some part of him knew having a guide was different from before, from having a boyfriend, but some part of his mind associated the broad shoulders and tall form of a man with his ex, and his heart hurt.

He’d been angry for so long, Keith was having trouble now that he was having to feel anything else.

He wanted to be angry again.  At least he knew how to do it.  He wanted Lance to say something he could pick apart so viciously that it caused them both to scream.  Keith hated himself for it.

“Now that the excitement is gone, it's hard to talk to you,” Lance admitted, “I barely know you.”

Keith swallowed.  “Solid observation.”

Lance smiled, so hopeful it hurt.  “So let's fix that. Tell me about yourself!  Favorite color, favorite food, favorite movie?”

“It seems pointless to ask that sort of thing to me when we don't even know any way to save me,” Keith clenched his fists in the worn material of his pants.  “Don't you ever think it's too late? Maybe if you’d showed up two years ago, when I was worth something, you would've had something to work with.”

“You don't get to tell me to give up on you,” Lance snapped, anger seeping into his tone.

Keith hated that he was relieved to feel that anger surge in him too.

“Why can't I?!” Keith screamed, his shoulders shaking.  “Can't you see me?! I'm still dying! I look like a corpse in the mirror and all I do is sleep or fugue or piss myself as I throw up nothing but stomach acid and you’re fucking crazy to try and–and get to know me!  I wasted my whole life away while I was vomiting in my bathtub the last few months and suddenly you get to say that there's still hope for me?! Even if I live through all this my whole life is gone! James is gone, my job is gone, my parents hate me, my GPA is in the garbage!!  You don't get to pretend that suddenly my favorite color matters!”

“It's always mattered!” He yelled, grabbing Keith by the shoulders and shaking him, violent in his tight grip.  “You matter! You’ve lost so much but you're still here so you know there's something worth fighting for! So tell me your goddamned favorite color!  Stop talking like I'm going to lose you!”

Keith sobbed, shaking and angry but at himself, and no one else.  Lance deserved better. All he could ever do was push people away as he withered into nothing.  

“P-Pink,” he choked, “It’s that coral pink you see with turquoise sometimes.”

Lance’s grip on him melted into a hug, the guide holding him so close he could feel Lance’s heartbeat under his skin, his ear pressed against his collarbone hard.  Keith’s tears were wetting the light grey of Lance’s faded baseball tee, staining it dark in spots.

“I really like lime green,” Lance soothed, “and my favorite food is empanadas, and Deadpool is my favorite movie.”

Keith stayed quiet, letting Lance hold him and talk, deep and soft and gentle, telling him the answers to a million different questions Keith had never thought to ask.  He told Keith his memories, how all throughout his life there were times when he just couldn't remember, how sometimes the world felt like a scary place, changing so much when he came back to it.  He told Keith silly things about his older siblings and how rambunctious he was as a kid and all his hopes and dreams from college. And he didn't demand anything more of Keith, even though Keith was sure he was dying to know the answers to those same questions, the stories behind them.

But he wasn't ready to hope like that.  He couldn't act like he mattered when he still felt like any second now he could die.  He wasn't ready, but maybe he could get there, eventually.

“Keith?” Lance asked, quiet.

Keith didn't respond, his eyes long since drooped closed.  His hearing was fading too, sleep taking him over, but what little bit left of him that was still conscious was listening.

“I don't know if I can do this much longer,” Lance whispered.  “I’m so tired.”

The apartment fell quiet after that, too quiet, and Keith felt terror, the kind that freezes you tight in place as your heart pounds.  All the comfort and soothing just gone as he stiffened, rigid like a corpse in Lance’s arms as the guide fell asleep.

* * *

Lance was a master at sensing emotions.  However his ability as an empath was greatly hindered by his abilities with shielding.  It ended up being something of a contradiction; the world was too much with his shields down and he was numb and tired with his shields up.  Having a sentinel was supposed to balance out a guide, because they could borrow their sentinel’s strength to reinforce their shields and to use their bond as an anchor when they had to drop them.

But with Keith so weak and with Lotor’s words ringing in his ears, Lance hadn't tried to use Keith for much of anything.  His energy was leaking out of him like a faucet and he was so tired.

On top of that, he wanted to go home.

He hadn't seen the inside of his own apartment for days, and Keith’s, even with a good scrubbing, was an unsalvageable piece of shit.  Lance just wanted a good shower in water that didn't smell faintly of sulfur and to wear a new clean set of clothes that actually fit him–not that he didn't appreciate Keith letting him borrow his blood drive tee.

But the mix of unfamiliar sights and smells would be impossible for Keith to transition to when he was still as emotionally high strung as a kite and liable to fugue or go feral at any minute.  Keith screaming at him over asking what his favorite color is was just more proof that Keith wasn't stable enough to leave what he considered his territory.

And for some reason, Lance was just tired of it.

He’d wanted a fairytale meeting with his sentinel.  He’d wanted to look in their eyes and see love reflected back as they kissed with a rainbow and a lake in the background or something.  And a small, evil part of his heart wanted Lotor to be right just so he had a second chance at his happy ending, but he’d thrown his all eggs in this broken basket, and wondered why all the shells cracked.

Lance sighed, exhaustion eating away at him.  He couldn't handle feeling angry anymore. All he could do was reinforce his shields and try to remember that what Keith was feeling wasn't what Lance had to feel.

The good, patient part of Lance, the part that loved people endlessly and kept all his promises, it was still there.  It likely would always be. And it was still winning, still telling him to keep fighting, that there was no way he’d ever give up.  And there wasn't.

He was just shook.

Keith might not remember what Lotor had said but Lance remembered every insidious word and he knew his thoughts were a direct result of that toxicity leaking in his anxious brain and settling there.

Lance sat up, looking down at Keith’s even breathing.  He was clearly asleep again, had been ever since Lance woke up, but that was an hour ago and he hadn't stirred.  Lance’s shields were so strong he could barely read any emotions off of him, could barely feel he was there when he closed his eyes.

Maybe having his shields so strong was straining him worse than anything right now.  Maybe he should drop them and let himself feel Keith’s never-ending anger.

But he’s scared that if he does, he’ll read something in Keith that convinces him he’s not his sentinel.  And Lance is terrified of that even more than he is the exhaustion.

* * *

Keith waited until Lance left, promising he’d be back with clean clothes and food for Keith’s fridge, before the sentinel got up and truly allowed himself to panic.

Lance couldn't feel his emotions halfway across the city, Keith reasoned, sliding in his headphones and playing some soft Debussy, who he had never really liked but certainly couldn't help but respect–and anything was better than the silent screech of tinnitus that Lance left in his wake.

_“I don't know if I can do this much longer,”_ Lance had said.

Do what?  Keith couldn't think through the anger and betrayal and panic.  Be his guide? How could someone come in and say they wanted to save you and then decide it was too much work?  He’d agreed to let Lance bond with him for the rest of their lives but now he was too much work?!

Keith hadn't wanted to think it but it honestly brought back far too many bad memories of his parents.  The people supposed to love him for the rest of his life had learned he was gay and decided they no longer cared if he lived or died.  Just dropped him because it was too hard to understand him. There was something just functionally wrong with Keith that kept him from keeping the people he loved from staying in his life.  He was always too much.

So what?

Keith couldn't just give up for that.  Nothing had made him give up–not peeing himself in the bathtub, not puking up everything he hadn't eaten that day, not losing his boyfriend or his family to some drug that apparently had been in his veins since he was 5 years old.

Losing Lance wasn't going to make him give up and kill himself either.  No matter how much it hurt.

Still, what if he didn't have to lose him?

If being Keith’s guide was too tiring then fine, Keith was tired of being taken care of.  He could stand (for the most part) so he’d just clean and stay awake all day long and act like a normal person and then maybe, God just maybe, he wouldn't push another person he loved away.

He let Clair de Lune filter through his head as he stood, legs shaking but his senses under control, as he stood at the kitchen sink, wondering where to start.  Lance had done the dishes, had scrubbed the counters, had even attempted to fight that weird stain on the floor.

Shower, Keith thought.  He should shower. He hadn't showered since before he bonded with Lance, and sweat stuck to his skin in the most disgusting way.

Then what, his pessimistic brain chided, then suddenly Lance is going to realize his intrinsic value as a person again?  It would have no effect. But he had to try something and little steps, okay, little steps.

Keith shucked his pants off and pulled off his shirt.  He didn't look in the mirror–he didn't want to face how bad he’d really gotten.  He didn't want to see his ribs in the mirror or his stomach starting to bloat outward, his limbs like matchsticks.

He didn't want to think, Lance had to touch that, had to kiss him, because then he’d wonder how it was ever possible for his guide to want to come back.

Keith was sick of feeling sorry for himself, sick of realizing how far he’d fallen.  It was better to be angry at the world then anything else because at least anger filled that hollow part inside him that cried out for help and just wanted to beg and sob until the world took pity.  But the world never has compassion and Keith has known that since he was born so it was better to feel anger than sadness.

He turned on the shower, as hot as it could go, and let the feeling of his skin burning ground him in reality.  The rush of the water eased his senses, made him tired and sleepy, and the pain stung in a way that he needed right then.

He scrubbed himself down with soap, then sat down, his whole body tired.  Keith put his head on the top of his knees, frame shaking even with the hot water still pouring down on him.

The sight of his toes suddenly was fascinating, watching water droplets bounce off just slightly, watching how the rivulets of water drained across his face and clung to his eyelashes before getting too fat and heavy and bouncing.  Keith knew he was fuguing, that he should think of something else, break out of it before he got stuck, but he didn't have the strength.

If Lance came back, he'd save him.  If Lance didn't come back well, it didn't matter.  He’d survive it somehow.

Keith slipped away.

* * *

There's a feeling we all get, where you distinctly know something is wrong.  And guides more than anyone get these feelings all the time. Guides can feel where their sentinels are, and their abilities as empaths tell them the general emotions running through them.

Lance was an exceptional guide, the most talented the center had trained in years.

His connection with his sentinel was weirdly weak, his shields were raised high and strong and exhausting him, but this meant nothing in the face of the sheer dread he felt, halfway across the city from his sentinel.

Lance knew immediately, in his bones, the way only a guide can feel their bonded sentinel.

The first thing he did was throw on his shoes.  The second thing he did was call Pidge.

“460 E Bitter Orange St,” he said when she picked up.  “I need you there, something isn't right and I know it. I shouldn't have left him, fuck!”

Pidge said, “Deep breaths.  That's not too far from the lab.  I’ll be there and I'll bring all my medical stuff but Lance, you need to consider just calling 911.  You need to consider that this might be too much for you and I to fix.”

He knew that.  At what point did he stop assuming Keith’s wishes and just start taking care of them both like he should’ve been doing all along?  He knew Keith was in a bad situation but he was so angry and stubborn and so strong that it was overwhelming for Lance. He knew he was out of his league, he knew that.

And instead he wanted to fix it all on his own.

Lance remembered Plaxum, all at once, remembered how his friendship with her had turned dark as she begged him to save her and he’d ignored how everyone told him that he wasn't a one-man wrecking machine, he wasn't meant to save her all on his own.  That she wasn't his burden to bear. He’d ignored how overwhelmed and wrong it all felt because it had to work, he had to make it work.

Lotor was wrong.

He’d forgotten Plaxum’s lesson but it wasn't that he was too soft-hearted to know a bond from friendship or that he was deluding himself again with Keith; it was that he had scooped up all the pieces of Humpty Dumpty and tried to patch her back up all on his own, even when it meant lying to her and himself.

Keith was not going to be like Plaxum.

Keith felt good, felt right, like pieces settling and taking root in his heart and Lance had been too stubborn to even lean on him for help either.  It was time to stop working alone. He didn't do solitary guide work anymore, he was bonded and it was time he damn well acted like it.

“I’m going to,” Lance said, right as he hung up on her.

The numbers were nerve-wracking to press, but he pressed them.

…

“9-1-1, what's your emergency?”

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

The world came back to him slowly.  First, scents; sterile cleaners, lemon, the sick reek of day-old piss, something soft and flowery, a person’s shampoo on the pillow next to him.

Then sounds; snoring, the steady beep of a heart monitor, the sound of distant wheels and clothes rustling and cars.

Touch came with the scratch of horrid cotton, washed far too much, with the solid weight of a man’s hand in his, tendons heavy and grip strong.

Sight came last, as Keith opened his eyes to stare at a hospital ceiling.

He was in a hospital?

“Hey, sweetheart,” Lance murmured, his thumb stroking the back of Keith’s hand.  “How are you feeling, sleepyhead?”

“Like shit,” Keith answered, because he really did feel groggy and awful.  He ached, everywhere.

“You’re on a shit ton of painkillers and even more immunosuppressants.  I am not surprised to know you feel shitty,” Lance laughed, rubbing the back of Keith’s hand again, a little more pressure this time.  “You didn't wake up for three days, so you’re on an IV drip for water, but I can get you ice for your mouth?”

“Please,” he croaked, just now realizing his mouth was dry as the Chihuahuan desert he grew up in.  His bodily awareness was shot to hell, his mind drifting and his understanding of himself foggy.

Lance pressed a kiss to his temple and released his hand reluctantly, heading out to the hallway.

Keith tried to reconcile his memories with where he was.

Lance had left?  Had said he couldn't do this anymore and had left?

But now Lance was back and Keith whined unhappily, wanting his guide close enough that his soothing presence pushed down Keith’s rising anxiety.  He didn't want Lance to leave him, but he didn't want his guide to be unhappy, and those warring feelings made him want to get up and move more than anything, made him want to scream.

Why was Lance back?

Keith hated that he knew why–because Lance was too good of a person to leave him while he was sick like this.  No matter how much it hurt him, Lance wouldn't leave someone in a situation like his. Keith wanted to be better already.  At the very least, it would keep him from guilting Lance simply by being sick, by being alive.

He pulled at the thin blanket covering him until he had it over his head.  He couldn't move much to curl up, too many wires attached to him and too much pain in his bones but he didn't want anyone to see him, and this was the best he could think of.

He heard the stutter of Lance’s footsteps as he walked in, coming up short.  Lance cleared his throat, “I, uh, got you some ice.”

“Go away,” Keith croaked.

“You know I’m not going to do that, baby,” Lance said, sitting down again in the chair next to him, a clink as the bowl of ice was placed down on his table.

He swallowed thickly, the scratch just burning his throat worse, “I’m not your problem, just leave me alone.  Just go, I don't want you here.”

“I’m not going to leave.  You’re mine, Keith. Fuck Lotor for ever implying that you weren't mine,” Lance snapped, grabbing Keith’s blanket and yanking bit down so their eyes had to meet, so Keith had no choice to see how honest Lance’s eyes were.

“But you’re tired of me…” Keith whispered.

“I am not going to lie to you, I'm fucking exhausted.  But none of it is your fault and if I’m pissed, if I feel like I can't do this anymore, that's because I'm weak,” The guide grabbed Keith’s hand again, squeezing tight.  “I need you too, Keith. I'm going to borrow your strength and I'm going to weather all this with you, like I'm meant to.”

For the first time since they bonded, he felt the brush of Lance’s mind against his–a warm, pulsing comfort against him, just like Lance’s wide palms and long fingers and sweet smile.  Keith hadn't ever felt a guide touch his psyche quite like that, so all-encompassing but gentle, just testing the connection. It felt natural to just let him in, to relax at the feeling.

Lance murmured, “I’m going to borrow some of your strength, alright?  I want to reinforce my shields. Hospitals are really emotionally draining for any guide.”

Keith nodded, still in awe of the touch of his guide’s mind to his. 

Lance closed his eyes, their connection growing stronger until Keith felt some of his emotions just drain away, leaving him numb and weirdly light.  He felt good, like he could finally feel something besides anger without instead feeling misery or fear or pain.

“That’s nice,” Keith said, his eyes refocusing on the bowl of ice cubes.

Their connection was still open enough that Lance laughed and picked one up, pushing it against Keith’s lips.

Sucking on it felt good, and it was weird to think that Keith still had the option of feeling anything positive for something sensory.

“Now that you’re awake, we can work on checking you out of here,” Lance promised.  “And I’m not taking you back to your shit apartment when I have my own. And mine isn't a health risk and generally has food in it.”

“Work on?  I can't just leave?” Keith asked, mumbling through the ice in his mouth.

“Yeah, about that,” Lance chuckled sheepishly, “The doctor says it’ll be a week until you’re ready to head home.  Maybe less if you start to show some improvement, and we can get you back on your feet and moving around again.”

“... I can’t walk?”

“Right now it's really not recommended.  You don't have any muscle on you that hasn't also suffered damage.  You’re still recovering from severe malnourishment. There's a long list of reasons they’d want to keep you even longer, but I told them as a sentinel that a prolonged separation from your guide would do more damage than good, and they acquiesced,” Lance sighed, squeezing his hand again.  “I’m going to be here for as much of that time as possible. But Dr. Lotor needs me back at work so I’ll be in and out, and it would be easier on us both if you were at home with me.”

Keith groaned, “I hate hospitals.”

Lance laughed, kissing his forehead.  “I hate them too. They have such a bad feeling.  I’ll get us both out of here soon.”

“Lance,” Keith mumbled, “Are you going to be okay?”

Lance paused, his expression like the sunrise breaking over the mountains, “You’re sweet, Keith.  So sweet, oh my God.”

“I was being serious!” He protested.

“I know, you’re just so cute!” Lance squished his cheeks, beaming, “Of course I’m gonna be okay.   I just reinforced my shields. I feel better already.”

“Good,” Keith breathed.  “I’m tired… stay with me?”

“Of course,” Lance promised.  “Always.”


	8. Begin Again

**One Year Later**

* * *

 

A menagerie of party poppers and noisemakers all blew, confetti coating the air like a thick cloud. Keith laughed even as he sneezed out a confetti string, shaking out his hair as he whined, “Stooooop!”

Lance giggled, blowing the noise maker in his direction. “Baby, don't be a party pooper!”

“Then stop coating me in all this shit!” Keith insisted. “Shiro, tell him to stop!”

Shiro shrugged and blew more confetti at him.

“We’re just happy for you! You just got out of your last doctor’s appointment for the next 6 months!” Allura cheered, clapping her hands.

Pidge winked, “And you got approved to intern under Shiro! Crime scene analyst in training!”

Keith groaned and blushed, hiding his flaming red cheeks. Lance grabbed him by the shoulders and tucked him against his side, kissing his temple as he yanked his hands away from his face, “We’re so proud of you, starshine.”

“Plus it's noticeable that you're ready! A month ago you’d have fugued from the confetti and the noise would've had you running to Lance,” Pidge said, cutting herself another slice of cake.

“Wh-what, no way,” Keith denied. “I wouldn't have run.”

Hunk patted him on the shoulder. “You’ve come a long way, Keith.”

Keith sighed, “This is worse than a birthday party.”

“Don't worry, we know you’re a Halloween baby,” Lance teased, kissing his temple again. “We’ll throw you an even bigger, stupider party in October. With bat-shaped confetti!”

Keith smiled, melting into his boyfriend and guide’s side, tucking his nose into Lance’s neck so he could inhale the scent of boy and cake and that cologne that Lance liked to wear because it drove Keith crazy. He smelled the salt of sweat and the trace of the soda Lance had been drinking. He smelled like home.

“Tired already?” Lance asked, tugging Keith to sit on his lap properly.

“Mmm, sorry,” Keith hummed, “Wanna go home and celebrate.”

Nothing against Shiro or Allura, and he adored Pidge and Hunk, but Keith wanted some time alone with his boyfriend. And well, people exhausted him; his focus needed to be razor sharp to keep from fuguing at all the commotion of a big group. And when Lance was around so many people, he tended to lean more heavily on Keith for his shields, leaving Keith sleepy and even more introverted than before.

They just did better together, without the interruptions and the hustle and bustle of other people. Where Keith didn't have to focus too heavily on keeping his senses dull and Lance could field out any stray emotions without support. But parties like this were worth it, just to see all of their friends’ smiling faces.

Yawning, Keith nibbled at Lance’s neck, nuzzling and kissing down to his collarbone. “Home?”

“Yes, home,” Lance laughed, holding him around the middle as he hoisted him up. Keith helped his guide by wrapping his legs around him.

“Eww!!” Pidge giggled, “You two are gonna go home and fuck!”

“Pidge!” Shiro winced, pointedly looking away from the two of them, “Shh! You can't just say that!”

“She's right,” Lance waggled his eyebrows, his hands that were holding up Keith by his behind squeezing around the ample flesh, “Look at how fucking cute he is. How can you look at this ass and not think _'I wanna smash that’_?”

“Lance!” Keith pinched him, face burning, “Can we just go?”

“Awww,” Lance kissed his cheek, “but I like showing you off.”

Still, they stumbled together into a taxi, Keith burying his nose in Lance’s shirt to keep out the fumes of the engine, let alone hundreds of passengers who’d been in and out of the car. And he survived the drive with minimal wear and tear, his heart swelling with warmth every time Lance stroked a gentle hand through his hair.

And for how embarrassing it was to be bridal carried up the stairs, Keith enjoyed it, laughing when his elbow or his foot knocked into the railing or Lance threatened to just drop him.

“Don't get me wrong,” Lance snickered as he unlocked the door to their apartment, “but I am gonna be so happy when you’re too fat for me to carry.”

“Nuh-uh,” Keith smirked, “You’re gonna just have to bench enough to carry my fat ass. I know you’ve been going to the gym. 'S hot.”

“Wait, you noticed?” Lance blinked in surprise, setting Keith down on the counter.

Keith pulled his guide in by the belt loops, smug smirk on his face, “I could tell you the exact number of millimeters that your muscles have grown, and I can still smell the weight machines and treadmills from your sweat, even though you showered. Of course I noticed.”

“I always forget you’re the most powerful sentinel I’ve ever met,” Lance said, awed. “I don't think even Dr. Lotor could sense that off of me.”

“You make me feel powerful,” Keith murmured, staring into Lance’s blue eyes, allowing himself to admire the maze of his iris, every twisting path and fiberous strand of blue, brown, grey, and green. The slightest shrinking of the pupil told him something he had known for ages; Lance was incredibly attracted to him. His want made his scent go salty, and Keith could hear Lance’s heartbeat pick up. His guide was aroused.

“You look so fucking beautiful when you focus like that,” Lance breathed, “You look like you can read my every thought, like my soul is splayed open in front of you. It's so fucking sexy.”

“I know,” Keith said, feeling giddy and a little horny himself. Lance didn't stop him as he stole a kiss, and the next time he went back they met halfway, all the fierce want and emotion but with no reason to hurry. Teeth nipped at lips and tongues soothed the bites, lazy kisses exchanged over and over again.

Lance ran his hand up Keith’s thigh over his leggings, knowing damn well how much the sentinel loved the motion. Between kisses, he panted into Keith’s wanting mouth, “I’m going to–ha...–protect you, I’m gonna keep you–safe, _safe_ –gonna make sure you know you're loved.”

“I'm not gonna break,” Keith laughed, pulling him closer and kissing him silly.

“I'm not going to let anyone try to break you again,” Lance shook his head, “I almost lost you before I even could even get to know you. And that's the worst crime I can even think of.”

Keith put their foreheads together and gave Lance the sternest look he could manage. “I’m not going anywhere. Okay? I’m here, I'm gonna stay here.”

Something dark lingered in Lance’s eyes, but he softened, eyelids slipping shut as they just breathed together.

After a hushed silence, Lance murmured, “I ruined the mood, huh?”

“You might be, uh, just a little overprotective of me,” Keith said, sneaking in a kiss.

* * *

“Lance?” Keith called as he put the groceries on the closest counter, picking his way down the hallway of Lance’s large apartment. His guide probably wasn't home, although that had happened more and more.

He padded down to knock on Lance’s–the master bedroom’s door, and when no one answered, Keith peeked inside, double checking that his guide wasn't tucked away there.

He knew Lance wasn't home, but sometimes Lance was bizarrely still, bizarrely quiet, so that unless Keith actually tried to listen for his heartbeat or his breathing, he couldn't detect it. Keith hated not being able to keep his guide in sight, in his senses.

He sighed, opening up the door to their, well, somewhat shared bedroom. It was technically Lance’s, but they shared the bed, the bathroom, and the closet. Keith had his own room, for when he had negative emotions, or needed space. Or for when Lance did. And for a guide, Lance surprisingly needed a lot of space.

When Lance wasn't home, Keith tended to keep to his own room, because Lance promised him not to snoop around in the guest-bedroom-renovated-to-be-Keith’s. But today Keith felt the urge to inhale his boyfriend’s familiar scent from where it was strongest, on their imitation silk sheets.

He carefully toed his way around their discarded clothes from the night before, headed towards Lance’s queen sized bed. But his navigation wasn't that great, as he tripped over one of Lance’s belts and toppled to the floor.

“Fuck!” Keith whined, his palms aching from catching onto Lance’s bedside table too roughly. The drawers had opened from the impact, their contents thoroughly shifted.

One of his knees was scraped open, bleeding a little from carpet burn, but otherwise no damage done to himself. The same could not be said for Lance’s stuff.

His blue cat clock was on the floor, batteries having bounced out of the back. The topmost drawer was open, and as Keith popped the batteries back into the cat clock, his eye caught on the bottom of the drawer. It was ajar, leaving a dark space underneath.

A false bottom?

“And he thinks I'm paranoid for using the deadbolt every day,” Keith scoffed, lifting the false bottom out with the diary kept inside.

At the bottom of Lance’s bedside table’s drawer was a gun.

Keith felt his blood turn to ice. Why was Lance hiding a gun? His guide had never shown any kind of violent tendencies. Lance wouldn't use it on anyone, he wasn't that kind of person.

Before all this started, before even James, Keith had had an ex who had a gun. His name was David, but everyone called him Davey or Big Dave. Dave was more of an early college sort of fling, where Keith just liked that he had a massive cock. Like, the kind of huge dick that always found Keith’s prostate without even trying, muscly and prone to holding him down or up or whatever way Dave felt like fucking him.

Dave was less bisexual than he was heteroflexible, and Keith knew their fling was all because Dave wanted to fuck someone and he thought fucking Keith from behind was the same as fucking a girl. But this all was besides the point. The point was, Dave had owned a gun.

And Dave once held Keith down at gunpoint and told him to suck his dick because he liked how scared it made him. Because he liked humiliated Keith was. And despite the fact Dave told him there were no bullets in the cartridge, Keith didn't go back to suck Big Dave’s dick anymore after that.

Guys with guns waved them around, aimed them, misused them.

So why did his sweet, loving, silly guide who had never wanted to hurt anyone and who was studying under Dr. Lotor to be a new kind of guide-pediatrician for children, have a gun in his drawer?

Keith replaced the bottom with trembling fingers, putting Lance’s locked diary back too, and shook as he exhaled.

He couldn't ask Lance why he kept a gun next to where they slept without revealing he’d been snooping around, invading his guide’s privacy. It hadn't even really been on purpose, but. Lance was hiding this from him. He didn't want it to be found. And if not for him tripping, he never would've noticed.

“He's not going to pull it on me,” Keith reassured himself, shutting the drawer. He turned to the closet door and grabbed one of Lance’s sweaters, his fingers still trembling.

Hiding himself away in the oversized fabric, he went back into his room, shut his door, and locked it. “Deep breaths,” he told himself, curling up tight into a ball, his knees tucked under his chin. Lance was his guide. He was safe. When their minds connected, it was the simplest bliss he’d ever felt.

His phone rang suddenly, shaking him out of his miniature panic attack. “Hello?”

“Keith,” Lance said, sounding relieved. “You were feeling such strong emotions there I couldn't focus. Are you okay?”

Keith felt another jolt of terror drip down his spine.

“Oh, no, sweetheart, what happened?” Lance begged, their bond immediately letting him know Keith’s entire mental state. It was something that rarely went both ways, not unless he was close enough to feel his bonded guide.

“N-nothing,” Keith mumbled, “I’m having trouble concentrating today. I thought I might fugue.”

“It's okay, just remember what we worked on. Deep breaths in, count, exhale. Clear your mind. Do you have something of mine with you?”

“Yeah, your sweater,” Keith said, pulling the fabric closer around him.

“Good, good,” Lance sighed. “You look so fucking cute in my sweaters, babe, you have to keep it on until I get home. I wanna see your sweater paws.”

“Y-yeah?”

“Yeah,” Lance reassured him. “Hey, I’m gonna be home in 45 minutes. Work is frustrating today in the lab. Lotor’s furious, he wants Hunk and I here until the epi-gun’s misfire problem is solved.”

“Gun?!” Keith shook, his mind blank.

“Yeah, that's my name for it but Hunk keeps saying dart is more technically right,” Lance worried, “Your emotions are all over the place. Have you taken any sensodyne yet?”

“No, I should go do that,” Keith glanced back at the door, reluctant to leave the faux-safety of his room.

“You’re going to be alright. This is our first scare in three weeks, babe, you’ve been doing great! Just keep breathing deep and smell my sweater and I promise, I’ll be back before you know it.”

“Right, yeah,” Keith wheezed, “See you soon.”

* * *

Keith heard the door open, but he didn't hear Lance enter. It bothered him.

“Baby? ...Keith? I'm back, sweetheart.”

Keith gripped his knees, trying to well down the panic rising in his throat.

Lance knocked on his door, his voice low and gentle. “Hey, are you doing okay? You don't usually lock me out.”

He forced himself to swallow it.

“Yeah, sorry, I just felt safer with it locked when I could hear everyone outside so loudly. I’m gonna get the lock now,” Keith lied, tasting the words like they were salt. It was easier to lie than confront him, for Keith. He didn't want to think about why that was.

He got the door, coming out and shutting it behind him with a click.

Lance was right there, tall, smelling like home and a million good things, his regular musk strong with the scent of sweat. He had said he was at work, but the sweat was fresh. Either he’d run on his way back, and who knows, he might have, or he’d lied to Keith about where he was.

Keith pretended that it must be the former because he couldn't think of the latter without wanting to shake and cry again. And he couldn't let Lance know he was so bothered by something that, in all likelihood, meant nothing.

“Hug?” Keith asked, opening his arms in invitation. The sweater paws, as Lance called it, were on full display, only the tips of his fingers peaking out.

“My favorite part of the day!” Lance beamed, scooping him up into his arms. “Look at you, you’re doing so much better already! You didn't fugue, you kept calm until I got back, you did so great!”

With his head pressed against his guide’s chest, Keith finally exhaled, comfort seeping back into his bones. He might've spent so much of his life angry, shoving others away at the slightest mistake, but he wasn't going to do that to Lance. He needed to stop this suspicious, too quick to accuse bullcrap before he used it to drive the one person he was slowly starting to trust out of his life.

“Did you work out?” Keith asked.

* * *

Keith trembled, tears slipping down his cheeks as he shook.

“Oh baby, no, no, what’s wrong? Why are you scared of me?” Lance begged, his voice sounding just as wrecked as Keith’s would be, if he could find it in him to speak.

“G-gun…” he whispered, shaking. God, he was pathetic. Why did this scare him so badly.

“Gun?!” Lance asked, bewildered, “What gu–the one in my beside table? Keithy, please, let me explain.”

“Don't come in,” Keith demanded.

“I'll explain from out here,” Lance promised. “I just forgot I even had it. Before you moved in, there was some worry that us investigating the drug-murders would cause us to need some means of self defense. It was there if anyone broke into the apartment to kill me, but you know us. That was so long ago and you know I haven't been working on the investigation since we bonded. I didn't want to put you back in any danger.”

Keith exhaled, “Get rid of it.”

“I would've thrown it out if I knew it bothered you,” Lance pleaded. “Baby, please unlock the door. I need to hold you.”

“No,” Keith exhaled, “No, I'm not ready yet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is all I have and likely as far as I'll ever get. Drop me a comment if you liked it. Sorry about the mischaracterization, the bullshit medical science which makes no sense, and the plot being all over the place. Let me know if you figured out who, why, or what was going on in the comments, or if you have any theories. Who knows, maybe I'll be more interested in writing if I see someone else also enjoying/hyped for this fic.


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